Politics, War, People, Poverty, Human Rights, Pollution

So this is going to be a short story for the time being but I will be adding to it.

Some o you have noticed the Osprey nests I posted about earlier.

They give you a gimps into different worlds.

I will also add a few more on this post for everyone to view.

Some are good some you have to wonder about.

First of course is a bit on plastic.

Scary stuff Right

It should scare you.

Guess who is responsible for all that plastic.

Oh yes people are.

Nest time you want to drop that hunk of garbage, maybe you will think about it twice.

I mean really how hard is it to put in a garbage container or re-cycling bin. If you are out on a picnic, hunting, fishing or whatever, the very least you can do is take the garbage home, with you and throw it in the trash where it belongs. Really is it that complicated of a thing to do. The life you maybe saving is your own. Think about it for a while.

Lakes, rivers, forests, oceans etc., are not garbage dumps.

When you go out for a walk take a good look around and you will see garbage almost everywhere you go.

And everyone’s Excuse is what exactly???????????????????????

I don’t know about you, but I am fed up up with litter bugs.

I just want to smack them up the side of the head.

Broken glass can cut children, pets, wild life and do great harm.

Hey if they picked it up instead of braking it maybe it would cut the cost of medical bills fro those who get cut, cut vet costs for fixing the damage it does to your pets.

The wild life of course do not have the luxury of either or.

Also in the majority of places it is a crime to litter.

You can get a pretty hefty fine in some places.

The crime against wild is even worse.

Our garbage kills wild life.

Talk about animal abuse.

In the wild those poor creatures suffer because of lazy humans.

So to all the lazy humans get your act together.

There is no excuse to drop your trash anywhere, but in a garbage bin.

Your trash is killing us all.

We only have one planet to live on so we all have to take care of it.

No exceptions to that rule, let me tell you.

Some day if someone give you a piece of their mind don’t be surprised.

Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 1/3)

Be sure to watch all three parts. Thee may be some swearing in the above video.

Then again you might start to swear too. I did.

The one below is heart breaking. This type of thing also happens in your own back yard. You just don’t notice. It happens everywhere in the world. It can happen even to smaller birds. How blind are some people I have to wonder.

Here too is heart breaking

What a horrid way to die if not removed.

Just imagine

Some People are doing their best to help the birds all over the world and the wildlife to survive.

Become part of the solution.

They build nests for the birds, set up cams, so we can enjoy watching them grow and learn how they live in the wild.

Some do so much to help,

They cannot stop the people, who toss all their trash however.

We can all help with that.

Maybe we all could do a little something, to help all those people, who take the time to help those majestic creatures.

I do why can’t you?

One person can make a difference. Just imagine if we all did a little something.

If everyone does a little then as a whole we can accomplish great things.

If anyone has any sites, birds or other wise, filled with trash or good trash stories please do leave them in the comment section.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press
February 2, 2015
The federal government has been trying to hide legitimate concerns about the consequences of oilsands pipelines by keeping under wraps a report on the possible environmental threats such projects pose, critics say.
“We are being sold a bill of goods by this government,” said New Democrat environment critic Megan Leslie.
“If this report has been around since 2013 and not been released, then it makes me think they must be trying to hide something.”
The unpublished report on environmental threats from oil and bitumen pipelines says little is known about the potential toxic effects of oilsands products in oceans, lakes or rivers.
“In particular, research on the toxicology of bitumen is lacking,” says the draft report, commissioned in response to concerns raised at the Northern Gateway pipeline hearings.
The document comes as Canada debates pipeline proposals for moving large amounts of diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to refineries and ports on both coasts and into the United States. It was obtained by Greenpeace under freedom-of-information legislation.
A spokesman for the department of Fisheries and Oceans said a more complete, peer-reviewed version of the report will be published in the coming months.
But Canadians need that information now, said Keith Stewart of Greenpeace. He said the fact the Harper Tories approved Northern Gateway in spite of important knowledge gaps shows a dangerous lack of caution.
“The fact they’re saying full speed ahead even though they know it’s a lot more dangerous than they’ve been letting on publicly should be a cause for concern,” he said. “It throws into question the regulatory approvals process, when they withhold this kind of information.”
An early draft of the report lays out 10 specific “knowledge gaps” about bitumen and the various substances used to dilute it when it’s pumped through pipelines.
“Very little information is available on the physical and chemical characteristics of oilsands-related products following a spill into water,” it says. “Research on the biological effects of oilsands-related products on aquatic organisms is lacking.”
“A better understanding of the fate and behaviour of these products is critical for assessing the potential risk to aquatic organisms.”
More research is needed on what happens to heavy metals in bitumen in a spill. There is a “lack of information” on how condensate — a lighter hydrocarbon used to dilute bitumen — behaves in water.
The understanding of how chemicals in bitumen would interact with fish should be improved, the report says. Specific research in different water bodies is needed.
The impact of sunlight, which can make some chemicals in bitumen vastly more harmful, is also unknown. The combined effect of bitumen and dispersants — chemical agents used to break up oil spilled in water — hasn’t been studied.
The draft finds that Orimulsion, a Venezuelan product about two-thirds bitumen and one-third water, is “highly toxic to fish” — 300 times more toxic to embryos than heavy fuel oil.
The 61-page draft includes 14 pages of references to peer-reviewed academic studies as well as government and industry publications. They date from 1976 to 2013 and include articles from a wide variety of scientific journals.
The government spokesman said funding has already been provided for five research projects on possible bitumen effects on fish and shellfish.
One new federal report, released Jan. 14, echoes many of the concerns from the unreleased review. It concluded little can be said about how bitumen changes as it weathers, how it interacts with sediments or whether it would float or sink.
“Research regarding how bitumen products will further biodegrade in the environment is insufficient,” it concludes. Source

July 25, 2010 The pipeline carries diluted bitumen (dilbit), a heavy crude oil from Canada’s Athabasca oil sands to the United States. They estimated the spill to be in excess of 1 million US gallons. For more details go to the Source

The Iraq war may be over, but it’s legacy continues to haunt residents in cities all across the country. In an exclusive report, Lucy Kafanov travelled to the city of Najaf where locals say that a health epidemic quietly rages beneath the surface. Birth defects and cancer rates are soaring in Najaf, but few outside of the city are aware of the scale of the catastrophe. American and British forces allegedly used depleted uranium rounds and other toxic weapons during the war, which some Iraqi scientists believe is to blame for the rising cancer and birth defect rates in Najaf. While no one knows exactly what’s making these Iraqi children ill, anecdotal evidence shows that a crisis does exist. High levels of congenital heart defects, malformed limbs and other defects have been documented in the city of Fallujah, but as Lucy Kafanov reports, the crisis could be far more widespread than previously thought.

Depleted Uranium Dust – Public Health Disaster For The People Of Iraq and Afghanistan

By Doug Westerman

Global Research, May 03, 2006

In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Jawad Al-Ali (55), director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent ( 2003) conference in Japan:

“Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers – one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney–he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer”.

“Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.”,

“We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I feel afraid to even talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait – we were accused of being Saddam supporters.”

John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization’s chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report ” on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust ” was also deliberately suppressed.

The information released by the U.S. Dept. of Defense is not reliable, according to some sources even within the military.

In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,

“The [US government’s] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.”

At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada.

PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 Army Division, 34th Platoon. (Names and numbers have been changed) was diagnosed with cancer several after returning from Iraq. Seven other men in the Platoon also have malignancies.

Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states:,

“Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity.”

Rokke’s own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. He stated:

“When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy,”

After performing clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear), 30 members of his staff died, and most others”including Rokke himself”developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems.

”We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension.

Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is “not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most cases.”

Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases?

Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore Lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb.

“That’s exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way.”

According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. “The larger the bang” the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the “micron size” or smaller, he said.

When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific:

“I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”

When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat ” sufficient heat to ignite the DU. From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur). Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and therefore respirable.

Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised. In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a small fraction of the cases are being reported.

Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on an on. Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU. Weapons. Now they are commonplace. In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, “Doctor, is it a boy or girl?” but rather, “Doctor, is it normal?” The photos are horrendous, they can be viewed onthe following website

Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated:

“Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA.”

Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the “Baghdad Diaries” wrote:

“Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia.”

“The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas.”

This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers). So, it’s 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!! Estimates of the percentage of D.U. which was ‘aerosolized’ into fine uranium oxide dust are approximately 30-40%. That works out to over one million pounds of dust scattered throughout Iraq.

As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002.

“American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Bagdad alone during the recent invasion.

I don”t know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that.

”In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying.”

By far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses ” scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.

Dr. Hardan also states:

“I arranged for a delegation from Japan’s Hiroshima Hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we

Are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq.”

Not only are we poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other countries who can help. The U.S. Military doesn”t want the rest of the world to find out what we have done.

Such relatively swift development of cancers has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the US military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 US personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served in the first Gulf War now have medical problems.

Although not reported in the mainstream American press, a recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes. On March 14, 2004, Nao Shimoyachi, reported in The Japan Times that President Bush was found guilty “for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms,”and the “tribunal also issued recommendations for banning Depleted Uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people.” Although this was a “Citizen’s Court” having no legal authority, the participants were sincere in their determination that international laws have been violated and a war crimes conviction is warranted.

Troops involved in actual combat are not the only servicemen reporting symptoms. Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, UMRC founder, and nuclear medicine expert examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

If so, the men – Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone – are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.

The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq in Easter of 2003, the unit’s members had been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.

“These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle,” said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing.

In a group of eight U.S. led Coalition servicemen whose babies were born without eyes, seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. In a much group (250 soldiers) exposed during the first Gulf war, 67% of the children conceived after the war had birth defects.

Dr. Durakovic’s UMRC research team also conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained “hundreds to thousands of times” the normal levels of radiation.

“This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991,” Durakovic told The Japan Times.

“They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between Depleted Uranium and the illness,” Durakovic said

“They do not want to admit that they committed war crimes” by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are banned under international law.”

(NOTE ABOUT DR. DURAKOVIC; First, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers!)

Dr. Durakovic, UMRC research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 issue of Military Medicine Medical Journal. The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU. The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran. That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU “amounts to a massive malpractice,” Dietz said in an interview.

The Japanese began studying DU effects in the southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit,a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer and early and painful death?

“Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1,000 times the damage of an X-ray”, said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C.

It is this difference in particle size as well as the dust’s crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading.

The U.S. Military and its supporters regularly quote a Rand Corp. Study which uses the natural uranium inhaled by miners.

Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time. Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs. Thus the effects are far different from natural uranium dust, whose coarse particles are almost entirely excreted by the body within 24 hours.

The military is aware of DU’s harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU’s effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU’s chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone.

Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size.

For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.

“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” writes Lauren Moret, another DU researcher. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

“When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote. “Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain.

Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is possible to approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. At .34 milligrams per dose, there are over 10 trillion doses floating around Iraq and Afghanistan.

How many additional deaths are we talking about? In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with estimates for the potential effects of the DU contamination left by the conflict. It calculated that “this could cause “500,000 potential deaths”. This was “a theoretical figure”, it stressed, that indicated “a significant problem”.

The AEA’s calculation was made in a confidential memo to the privatized munitions company, Royal Ordnance, dated 30 April 1991. The high number of potential deaths was dismissed as “very far from realistic” by a British defense minister, Lord Gilbert. “Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide,” he said. These remarks were made prior to the more recent invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, where DU munitions were used on a larger scale in and near many of the most populated areas. If the amount of DU ordinance used in the first Gulf War was sufficient to cause 500,000 potential deaths, (had it been used near the populated areas), then what of the nearly six times that amount used in operation Iraqi Freedom, which was used in and near the major towns and cities? Extrapolating the U.K. AEA estimate with this amount gives a figure of potentially 3 million extra deaths from inhaling DU dust in Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan. This is about 11% of Iraq’s total population of 27 million. Dan Bishop, Ph.d chemist for IDUST feels that this estimate may be low, if the long life of DU dust is considered. In Afghanistan, the concentration in some areas is greater than Iraq.

What can an otherwise healthy person expect when inhaling the deadly dust? Captain Terry Riordon was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving in Gulf War I. He passed away in April 1999 at age 45. Terry left Canada a very fit man who did cross-country skiing and ran in marathons. On his return only two months later he could barely walk.

He returned to Canada in February 1991 with documented loss of motor control, chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep problems, short-term memory loss, testicle pain, body pains, aching bones, diarrhea, and depression. After his death, depleted uranium contamination was discovered in his lungs and bones. For eight years he suffered his innumerable ailments and struggled with the military bureaucracy and the system to get proper diagnosis and treatment. He had arranged, upon his death, to bequeath his body to the UMRC. Through his gift, the UMRC was able to obtain conclusive evidence that inhaling fine particles of depleted uranium dust completely destroyed his heath. How many Terry Riordans are out there among the troops being exposed, not to mention Iraqi and Afghan civilians?

Inhaling the dust will not kill large numbers of Iraqi and Afghan civilians right away, any more than it did Captain Riordan. Rather, what we will see is vast numbers of people who are chronically and severely ill, having their life spans drastically shortened, many with multiple cancers.

Melissa Sterry, another sick veteran, served for six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of 1991-92. Part of her job with the National Guard’s Combat Equipment Company “A” was to clean out tanks and other armored vehicles that had been used during the war, preparing them for storage.

She said she swept out the armored vehicles, cleaning up dust, sand and debris, sometimes being ordered to help bury contaminated parts. In a telephone interview, she stated that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military’s test because she could not trust the results. It is alarming that Melissa was stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq. Cleaning out tanks with DU dust was enough to make her ill.

In, 2003, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. If the troops were on a mission of mercy to bring democracy to Iraq, wouldn”t keeping children away from such dangers be the top priority?

The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. It is no surprise that the Japanese Court found President Bush guilty of war crimes.

Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion.

In Kosovo, similar spikes in cancer and birth defects were noticed by numerous international experts, although the quantity of DU weapons used was only a small fraction of what was used in Iraq.FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM AFGHANISTAN

Verifiable statistics for Iraq will remain elusive for some time, but widespread field studies in Afghanistan point to the existence of a large scale public health disaster. In May of 2002, the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) sent a field team to interview and examine residents and internally displaced people in Afghanistan. The UMRC field team began by first identifying several hundred people suffering from illnesses and medical conditions displaying clinical symptoms which are considered to be characteristic of radiation exposure. To investigate the possibility that the symptoms were due to radiation sickness, the UMRC team collected urine specimens and soil samples, transporting them to an independent research lab in England.

UMRC’s Field Team found Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning, along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation.

Two additional scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study’s purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined. It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was causing the high levels of illness. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before.

Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous. How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months.

In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999. A researcher reported. “We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination.”

In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill.

How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads:

“The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptomsconsistent with internal contamination by uranium.”

In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of NON-DEPLETED URANIUM, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of “bunker buster” bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys.

“A significant portion of the civilian population”? It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children.

The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing.

————————————

According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states “The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium”. Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing “in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers”.

There were only 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq, and they were there for a short time. The number of 109 represents about 3.6% of the total. If the same percentage of Iraqis get a similar exposure, that would amount to 936,000. As Iraqis are permanently living in the same contaminated environment, their percentage will be higher.

The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC’s ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC’s scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC’s scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed “studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless.” The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers).

Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said : “I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals,” Fujita said. “As a result of the Iraq war, the situation will be desperate in some five to 10 years.”

The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen’s Tribunal that “convicted” President Bush gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen’s court with no binding legal authority)

1. Their use has indiscriminate effects;

2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;

3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;

4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.

Two years ago, President Bush withdrew the United States as a signatory to the International Criminal Court’s statute, which has been ratified by all other Western democracies. The White House actually seeks to immunize U.S. leaders from war crimes prosecutions entirely. It has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals.

CONCLUSIONS:

If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place. Source

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Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to over 30-fold in…

Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the…

Depleted Uranium Situation Requires Action By President Bush and Prime Minister Blair While U.S. and British military personnel continue using uranium munitions– America’s and England’s own “dirty bombs”– U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, and U.S. Department of Defense officials…

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Soon in Libya the cancers and birth defects should begin, if they are not already happening. I would imagine DU was used there as well. Syria is next.

May 25, 2013 “Information Clearing House” – The common problem we face is the power of concentrated wealth and monopolistic corporate interests. This has created a crony capitalist economy that uses government to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the people, often threatening our basic necessities for life. A clear example of this is found in the behavior of the chemical and seed corporation, Monsanto.Monsanto threatens the world’s food supply; this is a major challenge of our era. This struggle is central to the global ecosystem, economy and energy crises. Monsanto also pushes poisonous chemicals into the environment and promotes agricultural practices that exacerbate climate change.

Monsanto’s actions truly affect each of us. They put their profits over the need for healthy foods, diverse seed supplies and the stability of the agricultural economy. They employ a variety of tools to control access to seeds and aggressively push genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and toxic chemicals despite serious safety concerns about them. And they accomplish this with great help from the US government.

When President Obama appointed a Monsanto lobbyist, Michael Taylor, as the “food czar” (officially the deputy commissioner for foods) – avoiding the Senate confirmation process, which would have brought public attention to the appointment – it was one more example of how corrupted both parties have become by corporate influence.

A global grassroots movement is building to challenge Monsanto as more people realize that we are in a struggle for our survival. May 25 is a global day of action against Monsanto taking place in hundreds of cities and 41 countries. Monsanto must be stopped before its unfettered greed destroys our health and environment. We urge you to join the effort to stop Monsanto.

Monsanto: A Threat to Public Health and the Environment

Monsanto’s products increase the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, water and energy. At a time when the world needs to be making a transition away from the destructive impacts of energy and chemical-intensive agriculture toward local and organic food and farming, Monsanto is pulling the world in the opposite direction.

Monsanto began as a chemical company in 1901. In the 1930s, it was responsible for some of the most damaging chemicals in our history – polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB’s, and dioxin. According to a Food & Water Watch corporate profile, a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, Illinois, produced 99 percent of PCB’s until they were banned in 1976. PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to multiple organs and systems. They are still illegally dumped into waterways, where they accumulate in plants and food crops, as well as fish and other aquatic organisms, which enter the human food supply. The Sauget plant is now the home of two Superfund sites.

Dioxin is the defoliant used in Vietnam known as Agent Orange. It is one of the most dangerous chemicals known, a highly toxic carcinogen linked to 50 illnesses and 20 birth defects. Between 1962 and 1971, 19 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam. A class action lawsuit filed by Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange was settled for $180 million. And a Monsanto plant that made dioxin in Times Beach, Missouri, poisoned the area so greatly that the town has been wiped from the map. Thousands of people had to be relocated and it is now also a superfund site. Consistent with their method of operation, Monsanto has denied responsibility for the harm these chemicals have caused.

Their biggest selling chemical worldwide is the herbicide glyphosate, sold under the name RoundUp. Monsanto markets it as a safe herbicide and has made a fortune from it. Sales of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides accounted for 27 percent of Monsanto’s total 2011 net sales. Monsanto engineers genetically modified seeds, branded as “Roundup Ready,” to resist Roundup so that the herbicide is absolutely necessary for those who buy these seeds. Roundup Ready seeds have been Monsanto’s most successful genetically modified product line and have made Roundup the most widely used herbicide in the history of the world.

Roundup is toxic, known to cause cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, birth defects and infertility. A 2012 European Report found that the, “Industry has known from its own studies since the 1980s that glyphosate causes malformations in experimental animals at high doses” and that industry has known “since 1993 that these effects also occur at lower and mid doses.” This information was not made public, and both Monsanto and the European government misled people by telling them glyphosate was safe – as did the US government.

In response to Monsanto’s denial of this toxicity, Earth Open Source explicitly pointed to studies, including some funded by Monsanto, that showed “glyphosate causes birth defects in experimental animals” and also causes “cancer, genetic damage, endocrine disruption and other serious health effects. Many of these effects are found at very low, physiologically relevant doses.”

Before the use of glyphosate-resistant seeds, farmers used lower quantities of Roundup for fear of killing their own plants (since the herbicide kills anything green). But, a 2012 report found that with resistant seeds, “the herbicide can be sprayed in massive amounts, often from planes, near homes, schools and villages, resulting in massive increases in cancer and birth defects.”

In addition, farmers are discovering Roundup resistant “super weeds” that are not killed by the herbicide. An Arkansas farmer tells US News “This is not a science fiction thing, this is happening right now. We’re creating super weeds.” Indeed, there are now 24 Roundup resistant weeds that have been reported. In response to the appearance of these weeds, a report found: “farmers … use progressively more glyphosate as well as mixtures of other even more toxic herbicides.” In fact, farmers who grow genetically modified crops use about 25 percent more herbicides than farmers who use traditional seeds.

Monsanto produces a variety of pesticides that are less well known. Author Jill Richardson reports that these include “a number of chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network.” They include known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and other toxins such as Alachlor, Acetochlor, Atrazine, Clopyralid, Dicamba and Thiodicarb.

Not only does Monsanto never take responsibility for the impact of its poisonous chemicals, but they do their best to prevent research showing toxic effects. For example, in 2011, Monsanto acquired Beeologics, a company dedicated to restoring the health of the bee population, amid scientific and media speculation that an overuse of pesticides was to blame for dwindling bee populations.

Monsanto also threatens the sustainability of agriculture because its products require the use of larger quantities of water and fossil fuels in farming. While genetically engineered crops are supposed to be more drought resistant, the opposite turns out to be true. Don Huber, a science expert, notes “It takes twice as much water to produce a pound of a Roundup-ready crop soybean plant treated with glyphosate, as it does with soybean plant that’s not treated with glyphosate.”

Monsanto is a major threat to climate change due to its energy-intensive agricultural model and promotion of ethanol as a fuel source. The Organic Consumers Association adds it all up: “All told, the production and processing of Monsanto’s GMO crops, from deforestation to fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, polluting factory farms, and fuel-intensive food processing and distribution, is estimated to produce up to 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

As a result of Monsanto’s marketing, there are a lot of myths about GMOs. The truth is that GMO foods are different from traditional foods and are neither more nutritious – nor have they been proven to be safe to eat. Limited studies so far indicate that GMO foods may cause kidney and liver damage. GMO crops do not produce larger crop yields or make farmers’ lives easier, nor are they a key to feeding the world. The use of GMO seeds does environmental damage by increasing the use of pesticides, fossil fuels and water. And they make the world’s biggest environmental problem, climate change, worse.

Monsanto: A Threat to Biodiversity and Independent Agriculture

One of the keys to sustainability and durability in times of environmental stress is biodiversity. This means the existence of many varieties of plants and the insects, fungi and bacteria they require for survival so that food can be produced under different conditions. With climate change upon us, the environment is in a state of great stress: more extreme weather, new varieties of insects moving from south to north and new weeds are becoming common. This is a time when biodiversity is more important than ever.

Yet years of chemical-based agriculture have poisoned the air, water, soil and food supplies, which has killed many living things and decreased biodiversity. In addition to causing disease in humans, the use of herbicides and pesticides is contributing to a rapid species extinction of beneficial plants, insects and animals.

Monsanto is pushing agriculture toward less biodiversity by concentrating the world’s seed supply under its control. Through promotion of their genetically altered crops, contamination of traditional seeds and the practice of monopolization, Monsanto is rapidly dominating our global food system.

Monsanto’s genes are currently found in 40 percent of the crops grown in the United States. A March 2013 report found 86 percent of corn, 88 percent of cotton and 93 percent of soybeans farmed in the US are now genetically engineered (GE) varieties, making the option of farming non-GE crops increasingly difficult. As GE crops spread and infect or mix with traditional crops, it is becoming harder to preserve traditional seeds. This creates a great problem because, as we discussed above, GE crops are unsustainable for a variety of reasons.

Monsanto’s efforts to dominate the market began with buying up the competition as early as 1982. In the decade after the mid-90s, Monsanto spent more than $12 billion to buy at least 30 businesses contributing to the decline of independent seed companies. One of the big purchases that consolidated the market was a 1997 purchase of Holden Foundation Seeds and two Holden seed distributors for $1.02 billion. Holden was the country’s last big independent producer of foundation seed. The company was in the Holden family for three generations. They produced seed that was planted on about 35 percent of the acreage set aside for corn and were the biggest American producer of foundation corn, the parent seed from which hybrids are made.

Jill Richardson describes how aggressively Monsanto uses their market power “to get seed dealers to not stock many of their competitors’ products … they restrict the seed companies’ ability to combine Monsanto’s traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who plant Monsanto’s patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from saving and replanting their seeds.” They promised rebates to farmers who ensured that Monsanto products made up at least 70 percent of their inventory to keep competitors out of the market. As a result of this, through either purchases or forcing competitors into bankruptcy, the number of independent seed producers has dropped from 300 to under 100 since the mid-90s. Monsanto also required that their Roundup Ready seeds be used only with Roundup, thereby keeping generic, less expensive competitors out of the market.

The result has been increased prices for farmers and consumers. Since 2001, Monsanto has more than doubled the price of soybean and corn seeds and farmers have been told to expect prices to keep increasing. According to a March 2013 report, from 1995 to 2011, the average cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent; cotton prices spiked 516 percent and corn seed prices are up by 259 percent. The rising cost has had a deadly effect in India, where more than 270,000 farmers who grew Monsanto’s Bt Cotton committed suicide, many by drinking pesticides, because of endless growing debt. Nonetheless, the greatest threat from the loss of biodiversity in the seed markets is the ability to adapt to increasingly unpredictable climate changes. As Salon reports: “Many of the seed breeders and retailers Monsanto purchased were regional experts, familiar with the soil and adept at breeding crops suited to the vagaries of local pests and climate. That sprawling network of local knowledge and experimentation has been severely thinned.” Richardson adds, when crops are “too genetically homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that can wipe them out.”

A March 2013 report, Seed Giants vs. US Farmers, found that Monsanto’s seed dominance is also shrinking the number of independent farmers. According to the report, as of January 2013, Monsanto, alleging seed patent infringement, had filed 144 lawsuits involving 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses in at least 27 different states. Some of these farmers are sued because pollen brings Monsanto products onto their farms. There are so many cases it is impossible to summarize them in this article, but the Organic Consumers Association has an excellent web site for more information on this and other Monsanto controversies.

Monsanto: Leading Example of Corrupted Government Unable to Operate in the Public Interest

You would think this concentration of industry would lead to antitrust litigation. In fact, shortly after taking office, the Obama administration began an antitrust investigation, taking over from several states that were looking into the market practices of Monsanto. The investigation was announced with much fanfare, but last November, without even a press release, the Department of Justice closed the investigation, leaving us to conclude that it may have been a tactic to thwart state efforts.

At the beginning of the antitrust investigation, there was hope that a marketplace with more diverse seed sources and competition could exist in the future, but with the Obama administration’s decision to drop the investigation, Monsanto domination of the market has been given the imprimatur of legality and the abusive practices Monsanto uses to buy or destroy competition have been ratified.

Monsanto exemplifies political connections, the revolving door, bought-and-paid-for corporatist governance and so much that is wrong with the way the US government operates. Open Secrets reports Monsanto is one of the biggest spenders in Washington. It spent $6 million lobbying in DC in 2012, the biggest agribusiness spender. The next was Archer Daniel Midlands, spending just over $1 million.

Monsanto epitomizes the revolving door between industry and government. At least seven Monsanto officials have served in government positions. Michael Taylor left the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1984 to join King & Spalding, a law firm that lobbies for Monsanto. He returned to the FDA in 1991 and then left again to return to Monsanto in 1994 as their vice president for public policy, only to return to the FDA again as the current “food czar,” where he has led major advances for genetically modified foods. Taylor played the lead role in introducing rBGH (bovine growth hormone), which was used to increase cows’ milk production, into the US market in the early 90s along with two other Monsanto-FDA door revolvers, Dr. Margaret Miller and Susan Sechen, both from the Office of New Animal Drugs.

Other door revolvers include high level officials: Arthur Hayes, commissioner of the FDA from 1981 to 1983 and consultant to Searle’s public relations firm, which later merged with Monsanto; Michael A. Friedman, former acting commissioner of the FDA, who later went on to become senior vice president for clinical affairs at Searle; and Virginia Weldon, a member of the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee, after retiring as vice president for public policy at Monsanto.

But it is not only the revolving door that is the problem. It is also that some top government officials “work” for Monsanto while they are in office. One example took place during the Clinton administration when the French government was reluctant to allow Monsanto’s seeds on French soil. First the US Trade Representative Charlene Barschefsky urged the French government to allow the seeds. When that did not work, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright lobbied for Monsanto in France. When that failed, President Clinton himself took up the task of giving Prime Minister Lionel Jospin “an earful” about Monsanto. Even that did not work. Finally, Vice President Gore pushed Jospin – who finally gave in.

This is just one example of many in which the US government foreign policy apparatus operated on behalf of Monsanto. Five years of WikiLeaks diplomatic cables during the Bush and Obama administrations reveal that the State Department lobbied for Monsanto products worldwide and pushed genetically modified foods wherever it could. It is almost like the US government is a marketing arm for Monsanto and genetically modified foods. Indeed, in August 2011, WikiLeaks exposed that American diplomats requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to hold talks with politicians and agricultural officials in “target countries” in areas like Africa and Latin America.

There is no doubt that in the new massive trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the trade agreement being negotiated with Europe, the United States will seek to include protections for Monsanto and GMOs. Europeans involved in every aspect of agriculture or food safety are very concerned that lowered trade barriers will allow GMOs into Europe. In Europe, GMOs are currently grown on less than 1 percent of farmland.

When people try to use democratic tools to change Monsanto’s behavior, Monsanto and its allies spend millions to confuse voters and create fear. That was clear in the California initiative in November 2012 in which tens of millions were spent to prevent the requirement that foods be labeled so consumers would know whether they contained GMOs or not. Consumer groups continue to push for labeling. Another vote will be held in 2013 in Washington State, and Vermont may become the first state to pass a law requiring labeling.

Although labeling of foods that contain GMOs is required in Europe and US corporations such as Walmart and McDonald’s comply with these rules in Europe, Monsanto and its allies are taking the fight to prevent labeling in the United States to new levels. As more state-level battles and an energized grass roots develop, Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association reports Monsanto and allies are trying to subvert these efforts by getting the corrupt federal government to pass a law forbidding states to pass labeling laws.

Impossible, you think? Well, Monsanto has done the seemingly impossible before. Most recently, one legislative victory that enraged people was the Monsanto Protection Act (actually misleadingly named the Farmer Assurance Provision) which was buried in a spending bill earlier this year and which protects Monsanto from the courts. For example, under the new law, federal courts are not allowed to stop the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future. There are now efforts to add a rider to the farm bill to repeal this measure.

Stopping Monsanto and Moving to Sensible Agricultural Policy

The first step to stopping the entrenchment of genetically modified foods in our food supply is labeling. As noted above, states are moving forward on that front, despite the efforts of Monsanto to stop them. This is the big battle because when foods are labeled, consumers have the power of knowledge and can choose not to buy them. Cummins reports that in Europe, the labeling of foods was the key to stopping the development of genetically modified foods.

One of the tools we must use is the boycott. Large food and beverage corporations that sell billions of dollars of organic and natural foods bankrolled the industry opposition to GMO labeling in California. Brand names like Kashi, Cascadian Farms, Bear Naked, Honest Tea, Odwalla, Naked Juice and others need to be told that we will not buy their products if they continue to fund ignorance by blocking GMO labeling.

To protect our food and health, the United States needs to adopt the precautionary principle, which means products must be proven to be safe before they are allowed on the market. The US applies a sham standard of “substantial equivalence” which avoids the need to test for safety. Applying the precautionary principle to Monsanto’s products would mean a moratorium on them until their safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate-funded), long-term tests for food safety as well as safety for agriculture. Our health should come before Monsanto’s profits.

People need to be empowered not just with credible information about genetically modified foods and how to avoid them – that is, buy organic and non-processed foods – but also with access to courts to sue if agriculture, the environment or their health is damaged by GMOs. The repeal of the “Monsanto Protection Act” is a first step in that direction, but people also need to have a greater ability to sue corporations that harm them.

We advocate a two-path approach – protest what you do not like and build what you want. That means that while we encourage community-supported agriculture, organic and local gardening, preparing your own non-processed foods and working to change laws, we also urge protest. This May 25, nearly 300 protests are being held all over the world against Monsanto in the March Against Monsanto organized by Occupy Monsanto. Join these protests.

As it is with many other issues, the future of the world’s food supply boils down to the people vs. concentrated wealth and corporate power. It highlights the corruption of government and the need for a real democracy in which people are allowed to make choices for themselves on basic issues like what kind of food they eat and what kind of plants they want to grow. Popular resistance to concentrated wealth is growing as more people demand the right to control their own lives.

You can learn more and hear our interview with Ronnie Cummins, Patty Lovera and Adam Eidinger, “Reasons to Protest Monsanto” at Clearing The FOG.

Repeated calls to address problems at facility ‘met with silence’ by state and federal officials
February 16 2013

Reports that a storage tank for nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear facility in Washington state–one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in the country–is leaking radioactive waste were confirmed that state’s governor Friday.

The news raises concerns about the integrity of similar tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation and puts added pressure on the federal government to resolve construction problems with the plant being built to alleviate environmental and safety risks from the waste.

The tanks, which are already long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, but Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year and poses a potential long-term threat to groundwater and rivers.

The Northwest News Network, in an interview with Tom Carpenter, head of the Seattle-based watchdog group Hanford Challenge, found that Friday’s news highlights the fact that problems have been endemic to the site for years and there’s not even a place to transfer the contained waste or a place to return any that may be recovered from spills or leaks.

“If you have another leak, what do you do?,” ask Carpenter. “You don’t have any strategy for that. And the Hanford Advisory Board and the state of Washington and Hanford Challenge and others have been calling upon the Department of Energy to build new tanks. That call has been met with silence.”

Though more than a third of the 149 old single-shell tanks at the site are suspected to have leaked up to 1 million gallons of nuclear waste over the years, this is the first confirmed leak since federal authorities completed a so-called stabilization program in 2005 that was supposed to have removed most liquids from the vulnerable single-shell tanks.

The new leak calls into question the effectiveness of that program, and state officials said it increased the urgency of ending roadblocks to a permanent storage solution for the 53 million gallons of waste housed at the sprawling site that was a center for atomic bomb-making material after World War II. Source

Also while speaking of weapons grade Plutonium.

Liquid bomb-grade uranium to be shipped secretly from Chalk River to U.S.

By Ian MacLeod, February 10, 2013

OTTAWA — Nuclear officials are preparing to secretly transport a toxic stew of liquid bomb-grade uranium by armed convoy from Chalk River to a South Carolina reprocessing site.

The “high priority” mission marks the first time authorities have attempted to truck highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in a liquid solution, prompting nuclear safety advocacy groups on both sides of the border to sound the alarm for greater government scrutiny.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has confirmed the plan to the Citizen. It follows Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at last year’s global nuclear security summit to return HEU inventories to the United States to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.

Officials with CNSC and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which operates Chalk River Laboratories, say federal law prohibits publicly releasing details about the mission, including the number of transport truck trips involved, the routing through Eastern Ontario and the timing.
But documents filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) suggest many truck trips will be required and could begin in August.

This does seem to be an unprecedented, cross-border shipment of liquid high-level waste and, for that reason alone, it needs the highest order of environmental review on both sides of the border,” says Tom Clements, a South Carolina campaign co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth and former executive-director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington.

Small amounts of HEU in solid form have long been exported, without incident, by the U.S. to Canada for the production of medical isotopes at Chalk River’s NRU reactor.

What’s different this time is the HEU to be transported for reprocessing at the U.S. government’s Savannah River Site is in liquid form and believed to from Chalk River’s controversial Fissile Solution Storage Tank, or FISST.

The 24,000-litre waste tank is largely unknown outside the nuclear establishment, but within the industry in Canada and internationally, it is a source of persistent unease.

The double-walled, stainless-steel vessel contains 17 years’ worth of an intensely radioactive acidic solution from the production of molybdenum-99, a vital medical isotope produced by irradiating HEU “targets.

The liquid must be carefully monitored, mixed and warmed to prevent it from solidifying and — in a worst-case scenario — potentially achieving a self-sustaining chain reaction of fissioning atoms called criticality.

The energy and heat from such a chain reaction could potentially rupture the tank, release the solution into the environment and endanger anyone nearby. There would be no danger of a nuclear explosion.

Not surprisingly, FISST is under constant surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Commission for any hint of an accidental atomic chain reaction.

Taken out of service around 2003, FISST is believed to be near-full and sitting inside a thick, in-ground concrete vault in a building two hours northwest of Ottawa. In the years since, HEU-bearing liquid waste produced during isotope production has been solidified and placed in secure storage.

The FISST’s chief ingredient is an estimated 175 kilograms of HEU containing 93 per cent uranium-235, the isotope that sustains a fission chain reaction. Also present are plutonium, tritium, other fission products and mercury. About 20 kilograms to 45 kilograms of HEU is considered sufficient to construct a small nuclear weapon or a Hiroshima-sized bomb.

NRC documents note that the radioactive payload to be removed from Canada, “is highly enriched target material,” containing 7.2 grams of HEU per litre, which precisely matches the description and composition of the FISST’s contents.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had planned to take until 2020 to resolve the FISST issue, but CNSC staff have said they want it dealt with during Chalk River Laboratories’ current five-year-operating licence, which expires Oct. 31, 2016.

Earlier this month, Clements made a formal request to the U.S. Department of Energy for an extensive and public environmental hearing before the radioactive shipments are approved. He said a 1996 U.S. environmental review of HEU shipments to Savannah River did not consider the implications surrounding liquid HEU.

The Canadian group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Responsibility is urging Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver to do the same here.

But NRC documents on the issue call for an “expedited” certification review of a plan to transport the HEU liquid waste in stainless-steel casks originally designed to carry dry nuclear waste, such as spent fuel rods from reactors.

NAC International Inc., a U.S. company specializing in nuclear packaging and transport, is seeking NRC and CNSC approvals to use its NAC-LWT (legal weight truck) cask system to haul the radioactive liquid from Canada, something that the CNSC and other experts say has never been done before.

In documents, NRC officials characterize the request as, “a high priority for review to support the (U.S.) Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Program,” to reduce civilian use of weapons-grade uranium. The company filed the request, with supporting technical data, on Dec. 28.

In a Jan. 31 reply to the company, the NRC said it wants the company to produce more technical information about the viability and safety of using the casks to transport liquid HEU. It gave the company two weeks to comply, adding if all goes well, approval could be expected by May 10.

The company did not respond to requests for comments late last week.

The CNSC has a separate review underway of the proposed change to the cask payload, one of several approvals required on both sides of the border before the radioactive waste can be moved along continental roads and highways.

No HEU transport is authorized without CNSC approval in order to ensure safety to the public, workers and the environment,” it said in a statement Friday. “Safety requirements must be met in accordance with CNSC and Canada’s Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations.

These containers must undergo stringent testing, which simulate both normal and hypothetical conditions of transport, including free-drop testing, puncture testing and thermal testing.

Carriers must be specially trained and a transportation security plan must also be approved, it said.

The primary purpose of this plan is to assure that the nuclear material to be transported will receive adequate physical protection against any threats that may arise during its transport.

AECL is generally tight-lipped about FISST. A spokesman Friday would only say that “AECL is participating in HEU repatriation activities.

NAC International, in filings with the NRC, proposes to that each cask carry a total of up to 257 litres of HEU solution. Each cask would hold four smaller containers, with each of those holding up to 64 litres. The estimated HEU content in each would be about 1.8 grams.
At Savannah River, the liquid is to be taken to a complex known as H-Canyon and down-blended in to low-enriched uranium fuel for U.S. power and research reactors. Source

Action Alert February 4, 2013

Please write to U.S. and Canadian Authorities

Proposed Import and Transport of Liquid Radioactive Wastes

Bearing Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) to the U.S. from Canada

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is planning to import and transport liquid radioactive waste containing weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) from Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories (CRNL) to the DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

The proposed movement of liquid HEU-bearing radioactive waste was confirmed at the recent SRS (Savannah River Site) Citizens Advisory Board meeting in Augusta, Georgia on January 28-29. This proposal is (so far as we are aware) the first of it’s kind.

We are asking citizens and elected officials to send an urgent request to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s SRS NEPA officer, Drew Grainger, who can be emailed at:drew.grainger@srs.gov
(NEPA is the U.S. National Environmental Protection Act.)

Tell DOE that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) must be done on the proposed import to the U.S.A. of HEU-bearing liquid radioactive waste from Canada’s Chalk River. (See Tom Clements’ letter, below, as a sample of concerns to be raised.)

No SEIS has yet been done. Such an SEIS is absolutely necessary so that an informed public policy discussion can occur.

Also, please write to the Canadian Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Joe Oliver asking him to ensure that a full Environmental Assessment is conducted under Canadian Law, with an independent panel and public hearings E-mail him at joe.oliver@parl.gc.ca

SRS is where 35 MT of weapons-grade plutonium was made. SRS still processes tritium for all US nuclear weapons and is where a $7- billion plutonium-based nuclear fuel (MOX, or “mixed oxide” nuclear fuel) plant is being built.

Enbridge won’t be allowed to resume oil transmission in its leaky Wisconsin pipeline until it can prove it’s safe, according to a U.S. government order.

The pipeline, which carries Canadian crude oil to refineries in the Chicago area, ruptured on Friday and spilled about 1,200 barrels (190,000 litres) onto farmland, forcing the evacuation of two homes and threatening a drinking-water source four kilometres away.

“Accidents like the one in Wisconsin are absolutely unacceptable,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement Tuesday.

“I will soon meet with Enbridge’s leadership team and they will need to demonstrate why they should be allowed to continue to operate this Wisconsin pipeline without either a significant overhaul or a complete replacement.”

The U.S. Transportation Department’s pipeline-safety agency issued what’s called a corrective action order on Monday, in which it finds a subsidiary of Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. would risk “life, property and the environment” if it restarted the pipeline without “immediate corrective action.”

The order notes that the 750-kilometre-long segment of pipe that ruptured has had problems before, notably in 2007, when 1,500 barrels of oil spilled in Atwood, Wis. Following that leak, tests by Enbridge found “multiple crack anomalies” in the piping.

“The history of failures on respondent’s Lakehead Pipeline system,… defects originally discovered during construction, and the 2007 failure indicate that respondent’s integrity management program may be inadequate,” the order states.

Before Enbridge can resume using the pipeline to transport oil, it must submit a written plan for U.S. government approval. The company has also been ordered to conduct testing on the burst segment, reduce operating pressure in the pipeline by 20 per cent, and come up with a plan for long-term monitoring of the pipe, among other conditions.

In a statement Tuesday, the company said that “it is not unusual” for the U.S. government to issue these kinds of orders, and that it has already begun work toward satisfying several of the conditions.

Northern Gateway concerns

Enbridge, which operates one of the world’s largest pipeline networks for the transmission of oil and gas, has suffered hundreds of leaks over the last decade. A 2010 rupture in Michigan spilled more than three million litres of heavy crude into the Kalamazoo River, prompting $3.7 million in fines, $800 million in cleanup costs, and a strong rebuke from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Such problems undergird critics’ opposition to the company’s plan to build the so-called Northern Gateway system of pipelines across northern B.C., which would ship crude from the Alberta oilsands to ports on the Pacific Ocean.

On Monday, in a fresh volley of attacks, former Canadian environment minister David Anderson said Enbridge is “the last company in North America” that should be allowed to do it because the corporation has a “cowboy culture” and pays little attention to environmental safety procedures. The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the B.C. New Democratic Party have also voiced opposition to the Northern Gateway project.

Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast

It’s one of the last bastions of Canadian wilderness: the Great Bear Rainforest, on BC’s north and central Pacific coast. Home to humpback whales, wild salmon, wolves, grizzlies, and the legendary spirit bear – this spectacular place is now threatened by a proposal from Enbridge to bring an oil pipeline and supertankers to this fragile and rugged coast. The plan is to pump over half a million barrels a day of unrefined bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands over the Rockies, through the heartland of BC – crossing a thousand rivers and streams in the process – to the Port of Kitimat, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. From there, supertankers would ply the rough and dangerous waters of the BC coast en route to Asia and the United States. Dubbed the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the project is of concern for three main reasons: 1. It would facilitate the expansion of the Tar Sands, hooking emerging Asian economies on the world’s dirtiest oil; 2. the risks from the pipeline itself; 3. the danger of introducing oil supertankers for the first time to this part of the BC coast. Source

A year on from Fukushima, Japan is struggling to convince consumers that fish from contaminated areas is safe. With new limits imposed on radioactive substances in food, the government is sending canned fish to developing countries to feed children.

­A year on from Fukushima, Japan is struggling to convince consumers that fish from contaminated areas is safe. With new limits imposed on radioactive substances in food, the government is sending canned fish to developing countries to feed children.

As of April 1, 2012, the ceiling on radioactive Cesium in food has been lowered from 500 becquerels per kilogram to 100. With stricter regulations in place, authorities in the Tohoku and Kanto regions said Friday they are ready to increase the number of food tests to win the trust of consumers.

The food aid program will be carried out jointly by the Japanese government, Britain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), reports Sankei Shibun news website.

Last week, the Japanese government exchanged letters with WFP so that processed marine products made in the areas affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami could be used as food aid for people in developing countries. The program is specifically designed for fisheries from the disaster-affected areas, so that they could eliminate “reputational damage” caused by consumer fears.

According to Sankei Shibun, canned fish from Tohoku region will be shipped to five developing countries and used to feed schoolchildren. Five recipient countries are discussed, however, the only one named is Cambodia.

One billion yen’s (that’s just over 12 million dollars’) worth of canned sardines and mackerel will be purchased by WPF from factories in Aomori, Iwate, Ibaraki, and Chiba Prefectures. The money was allocated to WPF in 2011 by Japanese government. Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Toshiyuki Kato in the ceremony of exchanging letters said that “fish processing companies in the disaster area were severely damaged, however, they are making an effort towards resuming full operation”.

Not everyone supports the ODA initiative. Several citizens’ groups have opposed the move, saying that they do not trust the safety of food that comes from disaster-affected areas. Top officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs brushed off the doubts, saying all necessary radiation tests will be taken and only those products that do no raise any concerns will be exported. Source

Cesium is not the only radiaocative thing in the fish. Giveing this to children is the worst possible senerio. Children are the most vunerable when it comes to radiation.

Radiation has harmful effects on child development.

In Japan: The standard is 40 becquerels or less per kilogram for radioactive substances contained in the lunches, and will essentially be used as a regulation threshold. Source

Well seems the regulations in Japan are one thing, but for poor people in another country it is different.

Radiation (from here, we will use the word ‘radiation’, to mean nuclear radiation) can destroy molecules, including the molecules in our bodies. When DNA-molecules in our cells are destroyed, this creates a run a risk of developing cancer. Radiation is therefore called carcinogenic: it causes cancer. The specific problem with radiation, compared to other carcinogenic substances (i.e. chemical etc.) is that there is no ‘safe dose’ below which there is no effect.

Ahmad picked up a bright metal object in a park where he was celebrating his 5th birthday in Lebanon. It was an unexploded cluster bomblet, which blew up in his face, killing him slowly in front of his family.

Three years ago, public pressure pushed through a ban of these cruel bombs. But now the US is lobbying nations to quietly sign a new law that allows their use — signing the death warrant for thousands of other children. Most countries are still on the fence on how to vote. Only if we raise the alarm across the world can we shame our governments to block this deadly decision.

Positions are being drawn up now. We only have days until countries meet to send our leaders a clear message: stand up for the cluster bombs ban and keep our children safe. Click below to sign the petition — it will be delivered directly to delegates at the Geneva conference:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/cluster_bombs_ii_b/?vl

Thousands of people — many of them children — have been maimed or killed by these bombs. When they are fired, they spray small “bomblets” over a wide area, many of which fail to explode. Years later, people disturb them in their fields or school playgrounds not knowing what they are, and they explode.

In 2008, over half of the world’s governments outlawed these weapons by signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions. But now, shockingly, countries like France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK, who all signed the Convention, are under pressure from the US, China and Russia to run rings round the ban by signing a separate agreement that would allow them to use cluster munitions. Only Norway, Mexico, Austria and a few others are fighting this horror.

Negotiators at the Convention on Conventional Weapons meet in Geneva next week. Most governments don’t really want this protocol and have not said which way they will vote, but they are under severe pressure from the US to comply and will only object if the global public persuades them.

There’s no time to lose — the conference starts on Monday. Let’s call on our governments to reject this deadly and cynical US campaign to legalize cluster killing. Click below to sign the petition and forward this email widely — we’ve done it before, let’s do it again:

Cluster bombs and land mines were banned because citizens raised the alarm across the world — with victims and survivors leading the way. For their sakes and to ensure no more lives are lost, let’s not allow these cruel weapons back and join together now to demand a more peaceful world.

Please pass this on. And do take the time to sign it.US to stockpile cluster bombs in Australia? Despite Australia having signed the convention against cluster munition, a US base may transport and stockpile munition.

Court to Consider ‘Series of Complaints’ Against NATO, NTC

by Jason Ditz, November 03, 201

NATO’s careful avoidance of any investigations of the many civilians they killed over several months of bombing western Libyan cities may have kept the situation quiet for awhile, but now it looks like the story is coming out without them.

Moreno-Ocampo confirmed that they have received a “series of complaints” from Libyan civilians about NATO as well as the National Transitional Council (NTC), the Benghazi-based rebel movement NATO’s war was supporting.

Moreno-Ocampo also confirmed reports that Saif al-Islam Gadhafi was attempting to negotiate a surrender to the ICC, saying he had received questions from Saif’s associates about the terms of such a surrender. Source

Lets hope they also investigate all the NATO hired mercenaries as well.

Well I can see this being a sham. They will pretend to investigate and they will say US/NATO did nothing wrong as par usual.

There is no real justice. The great pretenders.

the US/NATO have been committing war crimes for years and gotten away with it. So we can expect a pretend investigation and they will get away with mass murders again.

Then there are the Rebels they supported. Nothing like helping the terrorists. Terrorists that will give them access to oil/gold.

Let them in to privatize everything and steal every last penny from the Libyan people, then leave them to starve in poverty, just like they do to the rest of Africa.

If you think Africa has to be as poor as they are you are wrong. The rich countries make sure they stay poor so they can strip their resources. This has been happening for years.

Christopher Busby: Chernobyl-like radiation found in Tokyo

Aug 17, 2011

Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March. RT talks to Christopher Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risks.

Aug 18, 2011

Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. Meanwhile, Japan is not out of the danger zone…in fact the nuclear crisis is getting worse and worse! We’ve recently learned from Japan that the amount of radiation released was more than 20 times that from the Hiroshima bomb, and now it looks they may be experiencing the early stages of a total China Syndrome meltdown.

Hartmann – Fukushima…is this the China Syndrome?

I just came across this. There is a lot of information there. Do take a look.

Fukushima radiation alarms doctors

August 18 2011

“How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?” asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo’s Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan’s House of Representatives.

“The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet,” said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

___________________________________

Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.

When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan’s science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure.

10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

_____________________________________

According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 “Hiroshima-type atomic bombs” and the amount of uranium released “is equivalent to 20” Hiroshima bombs.

America’s Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima

The report spotlighted data from the CDC‘s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on infant mortality rates in eight northwest cities, including Seattle, in the 10 weeks after Fukushima’s nuclear meltdown.

The average number of infant deaths for the region moved from an average of 9.25 in the four weeks before Fukushima’ nuclear meltdown, to an average of 12.5 per week in the 10 weeks after. The change represents a 35% increase in the northwest’s infant mortality rates.
In comparison, the average rates for the entire U.S. rose only 2.3%.

Radiation: Radiation exposure, especially the levels associated with cancer treatment, can cause infertility in both women and men. High doses can cause miscarriage or fetal defect in pregnant women.

The more people that get cancer the more treatments that will be given and the more treatments given equals less people to have children. About One in three people get cancer. One third of the population could become sterile. Give or take a few.

Effects of Radiation

Rem is the term used to describe equivalent or effective radiation dose. In the International System of Units, the sievert (Sv) describes equivalent or effective radiation dose. One Sievert is equal to 100 rem. It is a unit that is the product of energy absorbed in human tissues and the quality of the radiation being absorbed (the ability of the radiation to cause damage).

We have a lot to be concerned about. Some people say small amounts of radiation are good for you while others say there is no amount of radiation that is safe. So why can’t someone make it easy to decide when or if you should worry about radiation exposure? That is exactly what we’re going to do here—help by providing the facts. If you want additional information on why there is disagreement about the effects of low-level radiation, we have provided this in the section titled “Controversy.”

Let’s Begin

Radiation specialists use the unit “rem” (or sievert) to describe the amount of radiation dose someone received. We are going to use that unit throughout the sections. Without getting into technical specifics about that unit, it is enough to know that it indicates a measure of how much radiation energy is absorbed in our body. And, as we will see in other sections, the total energy that is absorbed and its effectiveness in causing change is the basis for determining whether health effects may result.

We’ll get into some detail later, but for a baseline—

1 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects.

10 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect immediate observable health effects, although your chances of getting cancer might be very slightly increased.

100 rem received in a short time can cause observable health effects from which your body will likely recover, and 100 rem received in a short time or over many years will increase your chances of getting cancer.

1,000 rem in a short or long period of time will cause immediately observable health effects and is likely to cause death.

Safe or Not?

Why do some people say all radiation exposure is bad and others say it can be okay? Even the scientific community differs on the answer to the question of low radiation doses and health effects. Radiation can cause biological changes in cells when they are outside the human body, and these can be seen in a laboratory even when the dose is small. However, these changes are not seen or cannot be related to health effects in humans. The fact that changes can occur may make some people believe all radiation is bad and the fact that this is not related to human health effects may make others believe it is safe at low levels. The human health effects that have been observed have been when individuals or groups have received larger doses of radiation (more than 50 rem) from events like those due to military uses of nuclear weapons, accidents, and uses of radiation in medicine for therapy.

If a population receives a radiation dose of 100 rem in a short period of time, we expect health effects in some of the people who were exposed. However, many who receive a dose at that level will not have any long-lasting health effects. This is like so many other things in our lives. If we eat a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet, some of us may end up with heart disease. But that isn’t true for everyone; some can eat this way for a lifetime and not have any heart-disease symptoms.

It isn’t a complete guessing game, though. Because radiation has been studied so much, there are some things we can say with certainty that apply to a majority of the population. We can say that for a small radiation dose (<10 rem), the risk of cancer is very small, too small to have any observable health impact in the population of the United States. We know that if the radiation dose is quite large and given in a short period of time, like the 1,000 rem in the chart above, it will cause an individual to be very sick and die.

Let’s Learn More about the Effects of Radiation

Let’s fill in the chart with a little bit more of what we know about getting a radiation dose to our entire body:

0 – 5 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects.

5 – 10 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects. At this level, an effect is either nonexistent or too small to observe.

10 – 50 rem received in a short period or over a long period—we don’t expect observable health effects although above 10 rem your chances of getting cancer are slightly increased. We may also see short-term blood cell decreases for doses of about 50 rem received in a matter of minutes.

50 – 100 rem received in a short period will likely cause some observable health effects and received over a long period will increase your chances of getting cancer. Above 50 rem we may see some changes in blood cells, but the blood system quickly recovers.

100 – 200 rem received in a short period will cause nausea and fatigue. 100 – 200 rem received over a long period will increase your chances of getting cancer.

200 – 300 rem received in a short period will cause nausea and vomiting within 24-48 hours. Medical attention should be sought.

300 – 500 rem received in a short period will cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea within hours. Loss of hair and appetite occurs within a week. Medical attention must be sought for survival; half of the people exposed to radiation at this level will die if they receive no medical attention.

500 – 1,200 rem in a short period will likely lead to death within a few days.

>10,000 rem in a short period will lead to death within a few hours.

The health effects listed above are for a radiation dose to the entire body. If the radiation is given to a smaller area of the body, there are other effects that may occur, but illness or death is not expected unless noted:

40 rem or more locally to the eyes can cause cataracts.

100 rem – 500 rem or more can cause hair loss for a section of the body that has hair.

200 rem or more locally to the skin can cause skin reddening (similar to a sunburn).

1,000 rem or more can cause a breakdown of the intestinal lining, leading to internal bleeding, which can lead to illness and death when the dose is to the abdomen.

1,500 rem or more locally to the skin can cause skin reddening and blistering. Source

By now everyone has seen crisscrossing streaks of white clouds trailing behind jet aircraft, stretching from horizon to horizon, eventually turning the sky into a murky haze. Our innate intelligence tells us these are not mere vapor trails from jet engines, but no one yet has probed the questions: who is doing this and why. With the release of this video, all of that has changed. Here is the story of a rapidly developing industry called geo-engineering, driven by scientists, corporations, and governments intent on changing global climate, controlling the weather, and altering the chemical composition of soil and water — all supposedly for the betterment of mankind. Although officials insist that these programs are only in the discussion phase, evidence is abundant that they have been underway since about 1990 — and the effect has been devastating to crops, wildlife, and human health. We are being sprayed with toxic substances without our consent and, to add insult to injury, they are lying to us about it. Do not watch this documentary if you have high blood pressure.

It started in the winter of 1998. Sky-obscuring “chemtrails” have been observed by thousands of eyewitnesses–including pilots, police officers and former military personnel–over Canada, the USA, Britain, Australia and allied European nations. Within Canada, Victoria, Vancouver, the BC Interior, Moose Jaw, Edmonton and much of Ontario have been hit particularly hard.

On March 15, 2001, radio reporter S.T. Brendt interviewed a senior air traffic control manager with the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) who was responsible for commercial aircraft over the northeastern United States. The FAA manager admitted he was being ordered to divert commercial flights around formations of US Air Force (USAF) Stratotankers. On whether the Air Force jets crossed into Canadian air space, he replied “yes.”

Each of the 650 USAF Stratotankers carries 150,000 pounds of transferable fuel. Each of the 50 KC-10s (refuelling jets) carries about 320,000 pounds. Speaking under strict anonymity, the FAA official said the purpose of the military missions was weather modification.

The particles sprayed into the stratosphere by the big jets act as moisture-attracting nuclei, forming clouds and precipitation. Immediately after the March weather modification missions, the northeastern seaboard was struck by unseasonable snowstorms that confounded 70-year-old residents and piled eight-foot snowdrifts against some homes. At least one fatality resulted due to collapsing roofs.

The inert aluminum spread by the jets is not considered a human health hazard. But according to the New England Journal of Medicine, microscopic particles in the air can kill city dwellers prematurely. Further, a 1993 Harvard study has identified particles with a diameter of less than 10 micrometres (microns) as a threat to public health. Death rates increase with the rise in particulate pollution.

Nevertheless, a leaked draft document from the International Panel on Climate Change said the panel considers spraying up to 10 million tons of microscopic aluminum particles “in the range of 10 to 100 microns” as a possible solution to avoid global warming.

Seeds of Infection

The FAA traffic control manager decided to come forward after his wife was diagnosed with sudden adult onset asthma following a March 12, 2001 aerial onslaught by 30 tankers over New Hampshire. She had no history of allergy. Their children also suffered severe reactions, including an infant son who was rushed to hospital with a gushing nosebleed.

Similarly, hospitals across Canada and the USA have been jammed in the wake of the chemtrails, with patients complaining of acute gastrointestinal and upper respiratory ailments, pneumonia, heart problems, aching joints, sudden extreme fatigue, vertigo, excruciating headaches, short-term memory loss, inability to concentrate, nosebleeds, sore necks and twitching eyelids. Unlike flu symptoms, body temperatures typically drop among chemtrail-exposed patients. These apparent fungal infections could be caused when aluminum particles bring down the fungi, bacteria and viruses found to be living and reproducing in the upper atmosphere. Professor Emeritus Robert Falk at the University of Texas has also found that metal-munching bacteria “metabolize aluminum” in his tests.

In November 1999, residents of Espanola, Ont. presented a petition to Parliament after USAF tankers sprayed sky-obscuring chemicals. Townspeople claimed that they were making children and adults sick over a 50 square-mile area. Lab tests of rainwater falling through the chemical clouds measured amounts of aluminum particles seven times higher than federal health safety limits.

Back in March, according to the FAA official, the chemicals spread in lingering white plumes by the big tankers showed up on air traffic control radars as a “haze.” Such cloudy radar returns are consistent with clouds of talcum-fine aluminum particles released by high-flying tankers in a process an official USAF study on “Owning The Weather” calls “aerial obscuration.”

Although chemtrails have crossed the sky over Comox, BC, a Canadian Forces spokesman at the Comox air base recently insisted that “no such joint operation exists.” However, doctors are puzzled by the results of hair sample analyses of sick patients on Denman Island and in Vancouver and Toronto, which show aluminum levels much higher than usual “kitchen contaminant” levels.

My investigation continues.

Chemtrails Revealed

The manager for planning and environment at the Victoria Airport Authority has confirmed that “chemtrails” spread by US Air Force tanker jets over the BC capital are a joint US-Canadian military operation. The airport environmental officer was responding to a Victoria resident’s inquiry concerning big jets laying plumes in lingering Xs, circles and tic-tac-toe grids over the British Columbia capital for the past two years. “They wouldn’t give me any specifics on it,” resident Terry Stewart said, referring to his control tower queries. “Very odd.”

At least 85 civilians have been killed in the latest NATO airstrikes in Libya near the western city of Zlitan, a Libyan official says.

The attacks took place in the village of Majer, south of Zlitan, which is located 160 km (100 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, late on Monday, Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said, AFP reported.

Thirty three children, 32 women and 20 men from 12 families were killed in the “massacre,” Ibrahim added.

“After the first three bombs dropped at around 11:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Monday, many residents of the area ran to the bombed houses to try to save their loved ones. Three more bombs struck,” he further said.

The US and NATO have unleashed a punishing, UN-mandated offensive against embattled Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in an alleged attempt to pressure him into giving up power.

NATO has conducted thousands of airstrikes against Libya since it assumed control of the military campaign in late March.

The airstrikes by the military alliance have killed many civilians as well as revolutionary forces that are fighting against the government troops.

Experts say the main motive behind the Western attack on Libya is the vast oil reserves of the North African country. Source

NATO is also going to poison the land, water and people with radioactive garbage (DU), as they have everywhere else they go. In the end millions will die. Seems like an instant replay of Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else NATO goes..We can expect death rates to skyrocket from cancer etc. NATO always give the gift of death that keeps on killing for years to come. They have the Gaul to call themselves the good guys.

War for resources is old hat for NATO and friends.

NATO and the US should be ashamed of themselves and their people need to tell their governments enough is enough. They are sick of their bloody wars.

Every time NATO and the US start yet another war the price of Gas/Oil goes up.

Guess who pays for all those wars your tax dollars? You who are just getting by.

I am sick of paying for their bloody wars.

I am fed up with all the deaths of innocent people.

The wars are destroying the environment of the world. That radiations goes with the wind. You can expect cancer rates around the world to go up yet again like one in three isn’t high enough. I guess they want to kill off everyone of us. So when we all die of radiation, who will be left? Then I guess they will say oops we made a mistake. Well it will be to late then. No wonder Health Care costs are going up all the time, the war machine is making us all sick. Don’t ever think because it is in another country you are safe you are not.

When the Nuclear reactor in Japan went up it spread all around the entire planet. Especially the Northern hemisphere but it will make it’s way south in the near future. Radiation knows no boundaries, nor does DU radiation.

The people are angry, This video isn’t in English, but you don’t have to be a translator to figure out what they are saying.

‘NATO after vast oil reserves in Lybia’

August 10 2011

A political analyst says he believes that the main motive behind the Western attack on Libya is the vast oil reserves of the North African country.

“It is undoubtedly true that the oil resources, the natural resources of Libya, are an important issue for the Western powers… even more important than the oil resources was the desire to intervene in the process of the Arab revolutions and to try and get some control over.” John Reese, from Stop the War Coalition, said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

NATO has conducted thousands of airstrikes against Libya since it assumed control of the military campaign in late March.

NATO has deployed its full range of aircraft in the war on Libya.

The developments come as the Western forces claim the operation in Libya is aimed at protecting civilians.

Scores of civilians have been killed in Libya since US-led forces launched aerial and sea attacks on the North African country.

Libyan troops have also killed thousands of civilians since a revolution started against embattled ruler Muammar Gaddafi in mid-February.

Reese also criticized Saudis involvement in Bahrain, saying that Washington gave them the green light to attack the Bahraini people.

He concluded that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was pursuing the US interests in the Middle East.

Critics accuse the West of hypocrisy over the offensive on Libya, along with its silence towards the brutal crackdowns on similar anti-regime movements elsewhere in the Arab world, such as in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Source Very informative video at site.

LIBYA produces 1.7m of the world’s 88m barrels a day (b/d) of oil. OECD countries import 1.2m b/d, and China another 150,000. The chart shows which of Libya’s main export markets are most dependent on it for their oil. The little boxes at the right on the graph tell who imports the most. . Italy is the biggest importer: in 2010 it took 376,000 b/d .

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa with 42 billion barrels of oil and over 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas. With only 25% of Libya’s surface territory explored to date there is every chance that actual reserves could see this figure dwarfed in coming years.

As Europe’s single largest oil supplier, the second largest oil producer in Africa and the continent’s fourth largest gas supplier, Libya dominates the petroleum sector in the Southern Mediterranean area and has ambitious plans for the future.

More than 50 international oil companies are present in the market and together with subsidiaries of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) are contributing to the country’s current production capacity of 2m b/d. NOC plans oilfield investment of some $10bn over the coming three years to increase potential production.

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: High Radiation Levels In America! Oklahoma City Hit By High Radiation Levels From Rainfall On August 6th, 2011.

August 7 2011

For a while now, I have been trying to keep up on any reports of high radiation being experience here in Canada as a result of the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster that is still ongoing, despite all of the news reports that are now downplaying that disaster. More reports about the levels here in Canada will be coming up soon in this blog….

In the meantime, I just came across a very startling and disturbing video, that comes from Youtube user “FireByNIght”. In this video, that I have embedded here in this report, “FireByNight” has taken readings in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on the night of August 6th, 2011, of radiation from rainfall that had occurred that night after a very long period of drought. Please watch this video to see the results for yourselves:

NTS Notes: Again, I want to thank Youtube user, “FireByNight” for taking these readings and exposing the fact that America, as well as Canada, is experiencing deadly radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It does seem that the citizens in BOTH the US and Canada are being lied to when our governments claim: “There is no cause for alarm” when it comes to this ongoing nuclear disaster.

And where is the US as well as the Canadian government in all of this? Our media is continuing to downplay the fallout danger from Fukushima, and trying to keep the public unaware of the dangers that we truly face. Again as I have stated before this is not negligence on the part of our media, or our governments, but outright criminality!

Please spread this information around for others to see…. We must all demand that our governments come clean about the danger that we face from the ongoing disaster at Fukushima.

Dr. Helen Caldicott’s March 18th press conference in Montreal, sponsored by the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Our thanks to Felton Davis for the transcription from the GRTV Video recording and for the annotations.

This press conference organized by Globla Research was held in the context of Helen Caldicott’s public lecture to Montreal on March 18, 2011.

First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl. It can be downloaded.(2) They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English. It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4) This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine. Because everybody should know about this.

Then we extrapolate through to Japan. Japan is by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl. Never in my life did I think that six nuclear reactors would be at risk.(5) I knew that three GE engineers who helped design these Mark I GE reactors, resigned because they knew they were dangerous.(6)

So Japan built them on an earthquake fault. The reactors partially withstood the earthquake, but the external electricity supply was cut off, and the electricity supplies the cooling water, a million gallons a minute, to each of those six reactors. Without the cooling water, the water [level] falls, and the rods are so hot they melt, like at Three Mile Island, and at Chernobyl.

So the emergency diesel generators, which are as large as a house, got destroyed by the tsunami, so there is no way to keep the water circulating in the reactors.(7) Also, on the roofs of the reactors, not within the containment vessel, are cooling pools. Every year they remove about thirty tons of the most radioactive rods that you can possibly imagine.(8) Each one is twelve feet long and half an inch thick. It gives out so much radiation, that if you stand next to it for a couple of minutes, you’ll die. Not drop dead. Remember Litvinenko, the Russian, who got poisoned by polonium?(9) You’ll die like that, with your hair falling out, and bleeding with massive infection, like AIDS patients die.

And [the spent fuel rods] are thermally hot, so they have to be put in a big pool, and continually cooled. The pool has really no roof.

There have been three hydrogen explosions, blowing off the roof of the building, not the containment vessel of the core, but the roof. And exposing the cooling pool.(10) Two of the cooling pools are dry. They have no water in them. Meaning that the nuclear fuel rods are covered with a material called zirconium. When zirconium is exposed to air, it burns, it ignites. Two of the cooling pools at this moment are burning. In the cooling pools are many times, like 10 to 20 times more radiation than in each reactor core. In each reactor core is as much long-lived radiation as would be produced by a thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. We are dealing with diabolical energy.

E=MC2 is the energy that blows up nuclear bombs. Einstein said nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water.(11) Because that is all nuclear power is used for, to boil water through the massive heat, turn it into steam, and turn a turbine which generates electricity.

Now when you fission uranium, 200 new elements are formed, all of which are much more poisonous to the body than the original uranium.(12) Although uranium is pretty poisonous. America used it in Fallujah, and in Baghdad. And in Fallujah, 80 per cent of the babies being born are grossly deformed.(13) They’re being born without brains, single eyes, no arms… The doctors have told the women to stop having babies. The incidence of childhood cancer has gone up about twelve times. This is genocide — it’s a nuclear war being conducted in Iraq. The uranium that they’re using lasts more than 4.5 billion years. So we’re contaminating the cradle of civilization. “The coalition of the willing!”

In the nuclear power plants, however, there is a huge amount of radiation: two hundred elements. Some last seconds, some last millions of years. Radioactive iodine lasts six weeks, causes thyroid cancer. That’s why people are saying, “Better take potassium iodide,” because that blocks the thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine, which later can cause thyroid cancer.

In Chernobyl, over 20,000 people have developed thyroid cancer.(14) They have their thyroids out, and they will die unless they take thyroid replacement every day, like a diabetic has to take insulin.
Strontium-90 will get out, it lasts for 600 years. It goes to the bone, where it causes bone cancer or leukemia. Cesium lasts for 600 years — it’s all over Europe. 40 per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Turkish food is extremely radioactive. Do not buy Turkish dried apricots, or Turkish hazelnuts. The Turks were so cross with the Russians, they sent all their radioactive tea over to Russia after Chernobyl.(15)

Forty per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Farms in Britain, their lambs are so full of cesium they can’t sell them. Don’t eat European food.

But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening now. One of the most deadly [nuclear byproducts] is plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld. One millionth of a gram, if you inhale it, would give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of plutonium if evenly distributed could give everyone on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium in it. You only need 2.5 kilograms to make an atomic bomb, because plutonium is what they make bombs with.

So any country that has a reactor, works with your uranium. You [Canada] are the biggest exporter of uranium in the world.(16) Canada sells two things: it sells wheat for life, and uranium for death. Plutonium is going to get out and spread all over the northern hemisphere. It’s already heading towards North America now.

Radioactive iodine, plus strontium, plus cesium, plus tritium, and I could go on and* on and on. When it rains, downs come fallout, and it concentrates in food. If it gets into the sea, the algae concentrate it, hundreds of times. And the crustaceans concentrate it, hundreds of times. And then the little fish, then the big fish, then us.(17)

Because we stand on the apex of the food chain. You can’t taste these radioactive food elements, you can’t see them, you can’t smell them. They’re silent. When you get them inside your body, you don’t suddenly drop dead of cancer, it takes five to sixty years to get your cancer, and when you feel a lump in your breast, it doesn’t say, “I was made by some strontium-90 in a piece of fish you ate twenty years ago.”

All radiation is damaging. It’s cumulative — each dose you get adds to your risk of getting cancer. The americium is more dangerous than plutonium — I could go on and on. Depends if it rains if you’re going to get it or not. If it rains and the radiation comes down, don’t grow food, and don’t eat the food, and I mean don’t eat it for 600 years.

Radioactive waste from nuclear power is going to be buried, I hear, next to Lake Ontario. It’s going to leak, last for millions of years, it’s going to get into the water, and into the food chains. Radioactive waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. This is the greatest public health hazard the world has ever witnessed, apart from the threat every day of nuclear war.

Einstein said “the splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking” — very profound — “and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We are arrogant, we have a lot of hubris, and I think the reptilian mid-brain of some men’s brains is pathological.(18)

We are in a situation where we have harnessed the energy of the sun. It is totally out of control. And there’s simply nothing we can do about it.

Obama in a Radiation protection suit, says all is well. Right Sure it is.

I feel so safe after that one. Don’t you?

Obama says “Don’t worry folks, I am not paranoid that is why I am wearing the pretty yellow suit”.

Hello any intelligent life out there. And one has to wonder where Obama and friends are getting their drinking water and food..

Monitoring stations catch a fraction of Fukushima fallout

By Alex Roslin, August 4, 2011

Confused by all the nuke lingo about becquerels and sieverts and what it means for your health? So were most of the nuclear experts we talked to for this story.

It also doesn’t help that Health Canada’s data on the radioactive fallout from Fukushima is so sparse and confusingly reported that it’s hard to figure out whether or not it exceeds government limits.

Health Canada reports on monitoring data for only three or four of the hundreds of radioactive substances spewing out of the crippled Japanese nuclear plant.

Canada also has only five monitoring stations that contain equipment sensitive enough to notice levels of specific radioactive substances from Fukushima in the air.

“They’re measuring only a fraction of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima,” said Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, speaking from Montreal.

In contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 200 monitoring stations checking for up to 11 radioactive substances in everything from air and milk to drinking water and rainwater.

Health Canada’s radiation-monitoring webpage downplays any fallout concerns, saying radiation reaching Canada has been “within normal background levels”. That’s based largely on data from a second network of 35 other monitoring stations that have less sensitive equipment (including 12 in B.C.).

But an analysis of the data from these stations shows radiation levels did hit sustained above-normal levels for an average of 36 days in March and April after Fukushima. The radiation level rose to 0.48 microsieverts per day, on average, during this time, up from 0.43 seen in the rest of the monitoring data between March 10 and July 27—or an increase of 11 percent.

Of all the B.C. sites, the biggest spike was in Victoria, where the level rose from 0.23 to 0.25 microsieverts per day between March 19 and 25—an increase of 9.9 percent. Vancouver saw a four-percent increase, from 0.43 to 0.45 microsieverts.

The worst-hit city in Canada was Regina. It saw a 90-percent spike in its radiation level, from 0.36 to 0.69 microsieverts per day. Yellowknife was second-highest with a 31-percent jump, followed by Toronto with a 26-percent rise.

But this data downplays the radiation from Fukushima, Edwards said. The less sensitive equipment also picks up large amounts of background radiation from natural sources like the sun and soil.

It also doesn’t spot jumps in the type of radioactive substances released in a nuclear accident, like iodine-131. Another problem: sieverts are a questionable way to measure radiation because they include a subjective calculation of the radiation’s impact on a person, and so the results can be manipulated to play down impacts, Edwards said.

“It’s a shell game. Microsieverts are quite a distance removed from the raw data. They’re blending in stuff from nature to make the data look innocuous,” he says.

You have to scroll down to the bottom of Health Canada’s radiation webpage to find the more striking data from the five stations monitoring specific radioactive substances.

This data shows the air at the five stations contained an average of 33.3 millibecquerels of radioactive iodine per cubic metre during 30.4 days of elevated radiation.

That works out to double the 16.7 millibecquerels per cubic metre of iodine-131 that would be permitted over those 30.4 days, according to the maximum limit set by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. (The commission’s ceiling is 200 millibecquerels per cubic metre of exposure in the air on a daily basis for an entire year. That equates to 16.7 millibecquerels per cubic metre over 30.4 days.)

The station in Sidney, B.C., detected 19.4 millibecquerels per cubic metre of iodine-131 in the air during a 22-day-long spike in radiation. That was 61 percent higher than the maximum dose of 12.1 millibecquerels per cubic metre permitted for 22 days.

Kelowna BC receives High Fukushima Fallout Radioactive Rain

Dangerous Radioactive rain in Lake Louise, AB

On June 26, 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, the nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the power grid, the world’s first nuclear power plant that generated electricity for commercial use. On August 27, 1956 the first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall 1, Eng-land, with a net electrical output of 50 MW was connected to the national grid.

As of August 7, 2011 in 30 countries 432 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 366 GW are in operation and 65 plants with an installed capacity of 65 GW are in 16 countries under construction.

As of end 2009 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 64,600 billion kWh. The cumulative operating experience amounted to 14,570 years by August 2011.

The Council of Canadians and MiningWatch Canada delivered almost 15,000 petitions against Schedule 2 to the Confederation Block where Environment Minister Jim Prentice has his Parliament Hill office this week. The delivery was made in advance of a federal Cabinet decision on the future of Teztin Biny (Fish Lake), a freshwater lake that is facing the threat of destruction under Schedule 2.

Schedule 2 is a loophole in the Metal Mining Effluent Regulation (MMER) of the federal Fisheries Act that allows metal mining corporations to use lakes and rivers as toxic dumpsites. Once added to Schedule 2, healthy freshwater lakes lose all environmental protections.

The federal government is expected to announce its decision on Taseko Mines Limited’s proposed “Prosperity Mine” project as early as Friday September 10. Located in British Columbia, southwest of Williams Lake, the project calls for an open gold and copper mine in the heart of Tsilhqot’in First Nations territory. While the province approved the proposal, a federal review panel rejected it last month saying it would have “significant adverse environmental effect and significant cumulative impact on fish and bear population and habitat around Teztan Biny (Fish Lake), Fish Creek and Little Fish Lake.” Generations of the Tsilhqot’in people have opposed the project, which would jeopardize a sacred site of great cultural and historic significance. The lake and its surroundings have been an important source of food security for the Tsilhqot’in who have lived, fished and hunted in the area for thousands of years

The Council of Canadians is a non-profit organization and does not accept money from corporations or governments. Our work is sustained by the generous donations of concerned Canadians who share our vision and commitment to action.
The Council of Canadians has joined the Tsilhqot’in’s fight against the destruction of Teztan Biny, arguing mining companies should not be allowed to use healthy Canadian lakes as dumpsites. Our Williams Lake chapter joined a petition campaign, organized packed-hall information evenings and took part in rallies to help build public awareness about the proposal. The Council’s BC Regional Organizer Harjap Grewal and National Water Campaigner Meera Karunananthan presented at the federal review panel’s public hearings protesting Taseko’s plans.

“Canada is one of the few countries in the world where mining companies are allowed to dump their tailings directly into lakes and rivers,” said Karunananthan. “Schedule 2 remains a threat to all lakes in Canada and must be eliminated. In the meantime, the federal government must do the right thing and save Fish Lake from destruction.”

Take Action!
Send a letter to Environment Minister Jim Prentice and members of the federal Cabinet to demand that they reject this proposal. Go here to send a letter.

To read more about the threats posed by Schedule 2 to Canadian lakes and rivers gohere.

“The VA does not listen to expert scientists. The VA does not even listen to Congress,” said Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) in his testimony. “Two decades of inaction have already passed. Gulf War veterans urgently want to avoid the four decades of endless suffering endured by our Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange.”

By: Mike Ludwig,

July 28 2010

For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans.

But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.

The memo, under the subject line, “Review of Draft to Congress – Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army — Action Memorandum,” makes some small revisions to the details of these three orders from the DoD:

1. Provide adequate training for personnel who may come in contact with DU contaminated equipment.

2. Complete medical testing of all personnel exposed to DU in the Persian Gulf War.

The VA, however, never conducted the medical tests, which may have deprived hundreds of thousands of veterans from receiving medical care to treat cancer and other diseases that result from exposure to DU.

The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center recently reported that ten years of data confirm that service members tend to have higher rates of certain cancers compared to civilians, according to the Army Times. While researchers suspected that service members are diagnosed with cancer more often and at a younger age because they have guaranteed access to health care and mandatory exams, the data does not explain the disparities in diagnosis among branches of the military. For example, the rate of lung cancer among sailors is twice that of other branches, while Marines have much lower cancer rates across the board.

On Tuesday, the VA’s ongoing failure to treat and diagnose Gulf War related illnesses came up during a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing where a veterans advocacy group urged Shinseki to undertake comprehensive research on the correlation between chronic illness and exposure to DU in munitions during the Gulf War.

Armed with Shinseki’s August 19, 1993 memo, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), said the VA, and Shinseki in particular, have “a rare opportunity for a second chance.”

“In military terms, VCS asks VA for a ceasefire,” said Paul Sullivan, the executive director for VCS. “VCS urges VA leadership to stop and listen to our veterans before time runs out, as VA is killing veterans slowly with bureaucratic delays and mismanaged research that prevent us from receiving treatments or benefits in a timely manner.”

Sullivan, himself a Gulf War veteran, told the subcommittee that the VA has refused to listen to scientists and veterans who are concerned about DU, leaving thousands of veterans suffering from chronic illnesses related to the conflict unsure if they will ever receive a solid diagnosis to justify the benefits and treatment they need.

Of the 697,000 men and woman who served in Gulf War operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield between 1990 and 1991, about 250,000 suffer from symptoms collectively known as “Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.” The symptoms include fatigue, weakness, gastrointestinal problems, cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbances, persistent headaches, skin rashes, respiratory conditions and mood changes, according to the VA.

The VCS also petitioned Shinseki to investigate the 2009 termination of a $75 million research project on Gulf War illnesses at the University of Texas medical center. Last year the VCS filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records of the “internal sabotage” of Gulf War Veterans Illnesses research and the intentional delaying of research and treatment, according to Sullivan. The VA has yet to release any documents about the impeded research, and VCS filed a FOIA appeal on June 29.

Sullivan said the VCS simply wants the government to support independent testing on veterans exposed to DU, but the Department of Defense prefers a “don’t look, don’t find policy.”

“As a Gulf War veteran, I have watched too many of my friends die without answers, without treatment, and without benefits,” Sullivan said. “In a few cases, veterans completed suicide due to Gulf War illness and the frustration of dealing with VA.”

Sullivan testified as disturbing reports have emerged in recent months from Fallujah, Iraq, about the skyrocketing rates of birth defects and cancer, which are being blamed on DU-laced bombs and munitions used by US and British forces during a brutal coalition assault on the city in 2004. Iraqi human rights officials are reportedly planning to file a lawsuit.

DU is a dense metal added to munitions and bombs to pierce tanks and armor, and the military seems to chose unrestricted use of the radioactive substance over its soldiers’ safety. Sullivan told Truthout that original medical tests ordered in a 1993 memo, which also called for personnel to be trained in dealing with contaminated equipment, were canceled after a training video scared soldiers.

“It was pulled after [the training video] was seen by some soldiers who became upset when they saw soldiers in moon suits holding Geiger counters, and the military realized that the training could present a problem in the battlefield where soldiers need to disregard exposure issues while trying to kill the enemy,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that the DU “follow-up” program the VA consistently references was inadequate as it consisted of sporadic studies on only a small fraction of estimated 400,000 veterans exposed to the radioactive heavy metal.

“The VA does not listen to expert scientists. The VA does not even listen to Congress,” Sullivan said in his testimony. “Two decades of inaction have already passed. Gulf War veterans urgently want to avoid the four decades of endless suffering endured by our Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange.”

Sullivan said it took 40 years and an act of Congress to fund and sanction independent studies that proved the VA was responsible for providing benefits to soldier suffering from Agent Orange-related diseases.

The VA now recognizes that exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide sprayed across Vietnam to kill foliage and expose guerrilla fighters, has plagued veterans with several deadly diseases and disorders.

VCS also advocated for the research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that became the foundation of new PTSD rules, making it easier for veterans to receive benefits.

Last week, the VA announced $2.8 million worth of research on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, a sum Sullivan called “paltry.” A VA press release announcing the research does not mention DU. The release references a recent Institute of Medicine report that identified the quarter million veterans affected by various symptoms associated with Gulf War illness, which “cannot be ascribed to any psychiatric disorder and likely result from genetic and environmental factors, although the data are not strong enough to draw conclusions about specific causes.”

Popular medical science holds that kidney damage is the primary health problem associated with exposure to high amounts of DU. The heavy metal is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium, and is also linked to lung cancer in some cases and leukemia in even fewer cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Some critics have claimed that the WHO and governments have suppressed links between DU and cancer.

The debate over the use of DU in conventional warfare will rage on as the Fallujah fallout continues, but according to Sullivan, there is only one way for thousands of Gulf War veterans at home to know the truth and receive the relief they deserve.

“After 20 years of waiting, we refuse to wait on more empty promises from VA. The first step is for Secretary Shinseki and Chief of Staff Gingrich to immediately clean house of VA bureaucrats who have so utterly and miserably failed our veterans for too long,” said Sullivan, vowing to petition Congress if the VA refuses to respond. “Our waiting must end now.” Source

Wars are not to help anyone just for world domination and Soldiers are nothing but cannon fodder. Leaders send them off to war and could care less if they are killed,maimed or sick when they return home. They are treated like garbage just to be thrown in the trash.

These guys get away with murder, authorizing torture and sending soldiers to die for Corporations interests and personal profits due from war. They are traitors to their country and are responsible for every death due to the wars they authorized. So they can murder millions of people and walk away rich and untouched by law. How sick. They are gutless, cowards and should be in prison for the rest of their lives as well as those who helped orchestrated the fabricated lies to start wars. They an anyone one who started unjust wars should be in prison. They are not doing this to protect Americans or help people in war torn country have a better life. They could care less who dies. They do not work for the American people they work for personal profits and corporations.

The oil slick on April 30, approximately is 130 miles long and 70 miles wide and growing. Between 200,000 to 210,000 gallons per day are now spilling out of the oil well. BP admits it cannot handle this disaster and is asking for help as well.

April 29 2010

The oil is leaking about 5,000 barrels a day apparently – five times greater than initial estimates.

Earlier reports said:

Oil continues to spill undersea at an estimated rate of 160, 000 litres a day. ( 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons of oil a day) The oil rig may have had as much as 700 thousand gallons of diesel on it as well.

By Danny Fortson

April 25 2010

Fireboats rush to contain the flames on the rig

It was a calm, balmy evening in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the crew of the Deepwater Horizon, a giant drilling rig moored 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, were unwinding after a 12-hour shift in the blazing sun.

It had been a good day. After weeks of drilling, the rig, a technical marvel designed to tap the world’s most remote fields, had struck oil. It was a long way down — some 18,000ft beneath their feet, further than the height of Mont Blanc.

BP, which had hired the rig, was preparing a press release to trumpet its latest success. The news would have gone down well in Washington. Weeks earlier President Barack Obama had opened up to explorers swathes of the Gulf and east coast, much of which had been off limits since the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

Then at 10pm last Tuesday, Deepwater Horizon’s lights went out. An eerie thud followed. Then another. Jim Ingram, a seasoned offshore worker, was preparing for bed. “On the second [thud],” he said, “we knew something was wrong.”

Moments later a torrent of gas, oil and mud burst through the rig floor, and for reasons nobody yet knows, ignited. In an instant the Deepwater Horizon exploded into a fireball.

There was little time to react. Some of the 126 crew jumped overboard, breaking bones from the 80ft drop into the sea.

Most managed to clamber into covered lifeboats, which were quickly winched down to the water. They gathered up colleagues and sped away from the roiling blaze fed by a fountain of oil and gas.

It was 45 minutes before they were met by a nearby BP supply ship that had been alerted to the distress signal. US Coast Guard helicopters flew the critically injured to hospitals. The rest of the survivors endured a tortuously slow return trip on the supply ship.

They arrived at a hotel outside New Orleans just before 5am to tearful family members. The father of one of the workers said: “Thank God he wasn’t on the rig floor. He would have been burnt alive.”

Eleven people were missing. The coast guard covered 3,400 sq miles in spotter planes, cutters and helicopters before calling off the search on Friday. Rear Admiral Mary Landry said: “The time of reasonable expectation of survivability has passed.” All eleven are presumed dead.

The accident was the deadliest for America’s offshore industry in more than two decades. The question now is who gets the blame.

Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, has staked his reputation on cleaning up the company’s act. When he took over three years ago, the oil giant’s image was still tainted by the 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 people and injured many more. The company paid millions in fines and pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

BP had just six men on the Deepwater Horizon. The rest were employees and contractors of Transocean, the firm that owned the rig and was responsible for the drilling. US authorities, Transocean and BP have all launched investigations to work out what went wrong.

The search for answers will be difficult: 36 hours after bursting into flames, the Deepwater Horizon capsized. The only trace it left was a one-mile by five-mile oil slick.

OBAMA enraged environmentalists last month when he repealed a moratorium on oil exploration on America’s east coast. His choice of venue for the announcement, Andrews air force base in Washington DC, in front of an F16 fighter jet modified to fly on biofuel, carried a less-than-subtle message. Finding domestic sources of fossil fuels is not just an economic issue, but a security one.

Five weeks before, Lord Hunt, Britain’s energy minister, delivered a similar message from a manufacturing yard in Fife. He announced the government’s largest-ever licensing of the seabed for oil exploration since the first parcels were offered in 1964, throwing open pristine swathes of coastal waters off Land’s End as well as large chunks of the English Channel that had previously been protected.

Domestic oil sources are dwindling at an alarming rate, pushing governments and the industry to increasingly desperate measures.

Kurt Arnold, a Houston lawyer with a pending case against Transocean, said: “The reality is that as we push and push into deeper exploration, deaths and injuries are more of a problem. You don’t hear about it because it’s offshore.

“They say it’s better than it used to be, but a lot goes unreported because of where it is.”

The Gulf of Mexico accounts for a third of America’s oil production. It attracts highly trained engineers as well as manual labourers, who can make far more than on land.

The work is dangerous. So far this year there have been three fires on rigs in the Gulf. Since 2001, 69 people have died in accidents. (The worst industry disaster remains the Piper Alpha catastrophe off Aberdeen, in 1988, when 167 workers died.) The Deepwater Horizon was designed to avoid such disasters. It was at the technological frontier, a “semi-submersible” rig intended for ultra-deep water, where rigid support structures are impossible.

Instead, it sat on pontoons equipped with thrusters that reacted to the tides to keep it in place. Six months ago it drilled to a record depth of 35,000ft. That well was also drilled for BP, not far from the site of last week’s disaster.

It is still unclear what caused the accident but it appears to have been a blowout — a sudden spike in pressure that sends oil or gas bursting up to the surface. If that happens, the blowout preventor, a guillotine-type valve on the seafloor, triggers automatically to cut the flow. It didn’t. BP sent remote-control submersibles to close it manually but they failed, which is why the rig continued to burn.

“I’m surprised by this,” said Manouchehr Takin of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, the research firm. “The deeper you go, you can find pockets of high pressure and low pressure, which can be a problem because the hydrostatic column must always be balanced. The fail-safes in place are incredibly good. This is just a tragic accident.”

BP’s relationship with Transocean will come under heavy scrutiny. Transocean is the largest offshore drilling contractor in the world with a fleet of 139 rigs.

The boom in offshore drilling, however, has led to intense competition not just for equipment but for the personnel to operate it. The most qualified crews are often shuffled between the most demanding jobs, like such as one the Deepwater Horizon was working on.

Contractually at least, the responsibility for the accident would appear to lie with Transocean. Like an architect, the oil giants design and oversee the job. It is the building firm, Transocean, that is paid to bring it to fruition, and shoulders the blame if anything goes wrong.

Speraking from Houston, Hayward said he was working closely with Transocean. “It is an incredibly good deepwater operator,” he said. “It’s their rig, their people, their systems, their processes.”

BP, as the owner of the oil, is taking the lead on the clean-up. So far this has been minimal. The fear was that oil would continue gushing when the rig sank. (Also, it had 700,000 gallons of diesel on board.) For some reason the flow reduced to a trickle.

BP has yet to determine why. A flotilla of 32 boats armed with skimming equipment and more than 1m feet of boom to contain any oil spillage remains at the ready.

Hayward said: “We want to make damn certain that this never happens again. That’s why I am here.

“We have an armada of ships ready to make sure that what is a tragic accident doesn’t become a major environmental issue.”

LESS than 36 hours passed before BP and Transocean were hit with the first lawsuit. Scott Bickford is representing the wife of Shane Roshto, 21, who had flown out a few days before to begin a three-week shift.

He is one of the 11 missing, now presumed dead.

“Both Transocean and BP are being sued. If there was any negligence, they’ll be liable,” Bickford said. “We wanted to make sure all evidence was preserved. I went down and saw one of the liferafts that was recovered. It was melted.”

This is just the beginning. It will be months before the cause of the disaster is determined and years before the last payouts are made.

For Transocean the stakes could not be higher. BP, too, will remain forever linked to another tragedy. How Hayward manages the crisis and its fallout could well be a defining moment of his reign at BP, much as Texas City was for his predecessor, Lord Browne.

The incident is certain to be exploited by all sides in the debate over where we get our energy and the risks we are willing to take.

“His proposal is not a done deal. Legislation needs to be passed. This will influence that debate.”

Defining moment for the clean-up king

WHEN Tony Hayward took the top job at BP three years ago, the oil giant was in turmoil, writes Dominic O’Connell. Lord Browne, the “sun king” chief executive who had built up the group in a series of daring acquisitions, had left under a cloud after a boardroom bust-up.

The company was still suffering the legacy of an explosion and fire at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170. The disaster had taken place two years earlier, in 2005, but a malaise still hung over BP’s American operations, fueled by the discovery of leaks in Alaskan pipelines and a string of other health and safety allegations.

Hayward, who has a first-class geology degree from Aston University in Birmingham, set out to reshape BP with a minimum of fuss and publicity. He asked Bain & Co, the business consultancy, to investigate the state of the group. The results were surprising. “I was gobsmacked,” he told The Sunday Times in an interview last November.

“They said, ‘You are the most complicated enterprise we have ever come across’. We were a very complex organisation with little clarity or accountability.”

His answer was to start hacking away at the organisation. He gutted middle management, sold assets and centralised operations. Only one in three of the top managers survived the cull. More than 6,500 jobs were eliminated and overheads fell by a third. The company’s results immediately perked up and investors were happy with Hayward’s increases in dividend payments and share buy-back programmes.

While the Gulf of Mexico explosion is not in the same league as the Texas City disaster, it is still worrying for Hayward, who is on the scene this weekend to monitor the clean-up.

President Barack Obama has only recently opened up new areas of America’s waters to exploration and BP, like the other oil giants, is desperate for virgin territories to explore.

If America pulls back, BP will be forced to look even farther afield. Source

Stormy weather delayed weekend efforts to mop up leaking oil from a damaged undersea well after the explosion and sinking of a massive rig off Louisiana’s Gulf Coast that left 11 workers missing and presumed dead. (April 25 2010)

Update April 26 2010

Fire crews attempting to extinguish fire.

Costs mount as BP battles oil disaster

By Rob Davies
April 26 2010

British oil giant BP is facing a multimillion-pound clean-up bill as it battles to contain a reputation-tarnishing oil spill off the coast of the US.

In the first major test for chief executive Tony Hayward, BP has deployed 32 ships and five aircraft to contain oil gushing from an underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico after an explosion on its Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

The explosion on the £388million rig managed by Swiss firm Transocean is thought to have killed 11 workers who have been missing since last Tuesday, while thousands of gallons of oil are being pumped into the sea.

A spokesman for BP said the clean-up operation had cost ‘ millions’ so far, but added: ‘Its money that needs to be spent and we will do what we need to.’

But the firm could be facing a multibillion-pound bill in the future, based on the fallout from the Texas City disaster in 2005, its last major US accident.

In that incident an explosion at BP’s refinery killed 15 workers and injured 180 others, prompting a report in which the firm was blamed for safety failures.

The company has paid out around £1.3billion in compensation and nearly £60million in fines for Texas City, and also reported lost earnings and repair costs of up to £650million relating to the accident. BP is already facing anger for this latest accident from US politicians, who have queued up to demand greater scrutiny of oil companies.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson said: ‘The tragedy off the coast of Louisiana shows we need to be asking a lot more tough questions of big oil.’

And his Louisiana counterpart, Senator Mary Landrieu called for a full investigation into the spill.

In a statement, the company said it ‘continues to forge ahead with a comprehensive oil well intervention and spill response plan’. One of the options being considered is to submerge a giant dome above the area of seabed from which the oil is gushing.

The dome, it is hoped, would catch the oil as it rises, which could then be pumped out.

The spokesman said the idea worked in shallow waters, but had never been tested in deep water.

The slick is around 40 miles off the coast and is not expected to reach land for three days. Source

Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Disaster

Both companies British oil giant BP and Transocean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling — which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.

There were 41 deaths and 302 injuries out of 1,443 incidents from 2001 to 2007, according to the study conducted by the Minerals and Management Service of the Interior Department. In addition, the agency issued 150 reports over incidents of non-compliant production and drilling operations and determined there was “no discernible improvement by industry over the past 7 years.” For entire story goHERE

Update April 27 2010

Robot subs attempt to shut off oil leak

A vessel tries to contain oil spilled from a sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico

Engineers from the British oil giant BP were yesterday racing to avert an environmental disaster in theGulf of Mexico as crude continued to leak at the site of the submerged oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and collapsed a week ago.

Up to 42,000 gallons of oil a day is spewing from a crumpled pipeline and uncapped well nearly a mile below the ocean’s surface, about 40 miles off theLouisiana coast.

Efforts to stop it rest in part on robot submersibles but BP officials said the task was “highly complex” and might not succeed. Surface operations by aircraft and ships to break up a thin slick that has grown to about 600 square miles were postponed by bad weather.

It was feared that a change of wind direction might push the oil towards land. “We’re in a very serious situation,” said Rear-Admiral Mary Landry, of the US Coast Guard. “Forty-five to 90 days is the initial estimate … before this well could be secured.” A search for 11 missing workers from the rig was called off on Friday. Source

Related

Oil spill set deadly record for Sea Birds

The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 killed more sea birds than any oil spill in history, according to a study by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists. For the entire Story go HERE

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was not the most egregious accident to damage ocean waters, but “only one of many, many changes, the mass majority of which are incremental, invisible, sometimes irreversible … and together quite insidious,” according to Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University For all the articles goHERE

U.S. Coast Guard to burn oil leaking from sunken rig

NEW ORLEANS—Racing against a threat to environmentally sensitive marshlands, authorities planned to begin Wednesday burning some of the thickest oil from a rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana.

A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said the burn was expected to begin in the morning.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Prentice Danner says fire-resistant containment booms will be used to corral some of the thickest oil on the water’s surface, which will then be ignited. It was unclear how large an area would be set on fire or how far from shore the first fire would be set.

The slick is the result of oil leaking from the site of last week’s huge explosion of the rig Deepwater Horizon that left 11 people missing and presumed dead.

Oil continues to spill undersea at an estimated rate of 160, 000 litres a day. ( 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons of oil a day)

Robot submarines have been unable to cap the well. Operator BP Plc. says work will begin as early as Thursday to drill a relief well to take pressure off the flow from the blowout site. That could take months.

Winds and currents in the Gulf have helped crews in recent days as they try to contain the leak, but it has moved steadily toward the mouth of the Mississippi River, an area home to hundreds of species of wildlife and near some of the Gulf’s richest oyster grounds.

Meanwhile, the cost of the disaster continues to rise.

The Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20. The rig was owned by Transocean Ltd. and operated by BP.

Industry officials say replacing the Deepwater Horizon would cost up to $700 million (dollar figures U.S.). BP has said its costs associated with containing the spill are running at $6 million a day. The company said it will spend $100 million to drill the relief well, which it does not expect to be operating for up to three months. The coast guard has not yet reported its expenses. Source

Imagine the air pollution from this one.

April 28, 2010

Update April 29 2010

Working on off shore rigs is dangerous in the Gulf of Mexico since 2001 there have been 59 fatalities, 1,349 injuries and 852 fires.

But that is only the off shore ones I went looking for all the accidents just to see how many there are around the world.

I didn’t find anything about world wide statistics yet but I did find some Rather interesting pictures of Accidents

Blowouts and some of the injures oil workers have had ( warning some of them are horrendous). There are many pictures and videos on oil wells. Be sure to check them out.There is a wealth of information at the site, just check the Site Map to find it all. You could spend the day there and not get through it all. Oilfield Accidents

Blowouts are explained on the videoLodgepole link below. It took 63 days to finally cap the well. It was above ground not under water. Underwater is much more difficult..I would imagine..If you watch all five Videos on Lodgepole you will see why. It seemed anything that could go wrong did. Go to the Video page for the other 4 videos. Blowout at Lodgepole Part 1

Update April 29 2010

Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico ‘could be worse than Exxon Valdez disaster’

The US Coast Guard and the oil firm were leading the bid to limit the spread of slick, fed by oil leaking from broken well pipes one mile under the sea at an estimated rate of 5,000 barrels a day – five times greater than initial estimates.

With three leaks detected near the sea, the spill could eventually match the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, when 11 million gallons gushed from a crippled tanker into an Alaskan sound, devastating the local habitat.

The oil slick could hit the shoreline , Thursday April 29 2010 from what many reports have said. Apparently it is about about 12 miles out earlier today.

Two Mysteries Surround Gulf Oil Spill …

April 29 2010

Normally, hydraulic equipment controlled by engineers up on the oil rig can close the BOP. As a backup, most BOPs have automatic shutoff valves known as “Dead Man” switches that cause the BOPs to close automatically if there is loss of communication from the oil rig. As another backup measure, many BOPs have radio-controlled switches to allow crews to close the valve remotely—but the Deepwater Horizon lacked that device. So now, as the oil continues to pour out of the open well nearly 1.5 kilometers below the ocean surface, engineers are desperately trying to close the BOP manually using an arm on a robotic submersible. For the entire story go HERE

Updates for April 30 2010

Oil Spill Hits Gulf Coast Habitats

On Thursday night, the oil made its first landfall: Louisiana’s “bird’s foot” delta and barrier marshes. Over the weekend, the oil is expected to reach Mississippi and Alabama and Officials of the joint federal-industry response team said that more than 217,000 feet (66,142 meters) of boom have been deployed to try to protect ecologically sensitive areas, and that loud cannons have been fired in an effort to haze the birds from the water’s edge. For the entire story go HERE

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency because of the oil slick.

Louisiana shrimpers filed a class-action lawsuit against BP, the owners of the oil rig, and Halliburton, which they say was working to cement the rig’s well and well-cap. The suit claimed that these companies and others were negligent in allowing the explosion that led to the spill, which they claim now threatens their livelihoods. They are asking for damages of at least $5 million. For entire story go HERE

Army of volunteers needed for Gulf oil spill cleanup

Volunteer efforts are underway in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida to contain and clean up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Deep Water Horizon response team is actively working to contain the spill and has laid down 217,000 feet of barrier. They’re asking coastal residents to report areas where oil can be seen on the shore or to leave contact information if they wish to volunteer by calling 1-866-448-5816. Oiled animals should be reported at 1-866-557-1401, but not captured.

The National Audubon Society is carefully coordinating their response with government officials to ensure that the response goes as smoothly as possible. Prospective volunteers who sign up at AudubonAction.org will be connected with state and federal agencies, Audubon leaders and other volunteer organizations who are in need of assistance.

For the entire story and organizations looking for help and donations goHERE to get phone numbers or web sites.

As the oil begins to wash ashore, reports David Usborne reports from Venice, Louisiana, on a community powerless to save itself.

May 1 2010

Despair and resignation reigned among fishermen and other seafaring residents of the southern Louisiana shoreline yesterday as the vast Gulf of Mexico oil slick began to slide silently into fragile marshlands and ecologically precious inlets fed by a deep-water leak that no one seems able to plug.

“They can’t turn it off, they don’t know how to,” lamented Captain Sean Lanier, who makes his livelihood taking tourists fishing for redfish and speckled trout through the grassy waterways and inlets at the mouth of Mississippihere. “What we need now is a James Bond to go down there and close that thing down.”

More than a week after the sinking of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig, about 40 miles out to sea from here, the leading edge of a slick as large as Jamaica was beginning to lick the reeds and mud flats of the estuary, threatening oyster beds, fisheries and tourism in communities that have barely recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Strong winds and 7ft waves were pushing the slick inshore even faster.

Now they are thinking about using a Chemical to help clean up the mess which may be as bad for the environment as the oil as there is has not been any long term study done however.

Oil-spill disaster: Chemicals used in cleanup add to toxic mix

May 2, 2010

For now, heavy applications of the soaplike liquid may be all that stand between the fast-spreading crude and Florida’s coastline, which could be in jeopardy by midweek, , according to projections by response authorities in Roberts, La.

Environmental advocates and scientists consider dispersant the lesser of two evils when faced with what could turn out to be the nation’s worst drilling-related offshore oil spill. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that “dispersants used today are less toxic than those used in the past, but long-term, cumulative effects of dispersant use are still unknown.” For entire story go HERE

To bad they didn’t have a few dozen Slick Lickers. Other wise known as Oilevator. And old invention.

They probably don’t even make them any more. But had they had a few of those it would be better then using Chemicals and you still get to save the oil. Now one would think this type of invention could have been improved upon considering the drilling at sea, as they do now. A few of these on a larger scale would be very helpful at a time like this. But whatever. Just a thought from a stupid person? LOL Beats Chemicals all to hell of course. And remember, if we run out of oil we can always go back to the old horse and buggy days. Horses were smart enough not to have head on collisions.

Environment: The Slick-Licker

Ferried out to the spill on small landing craft, four lickers extended their long, conveyor belt “tongues” to the oil. A whir of machinery, and the absorbent material on the belt spun into the oil and sopped it up. Heavy rollers at the end of the conveyors then squeezed out the oil into 45-gallon drums. In ten weeks about 200,000 gallons of oil had been lapped up. The licker is doubly effective because its conveyor belt is coated with oil prior to deployment. The result is that the tongue repels surrounding water and gobbles up only oil.

Oilevator is dirt cheap (about $7,500 per machine), and it has worked so well that a government task force has recommended that at least one slick-licker be placed in each Canadian port. For entire story goHERE

In this April 26, 20010 photo released by the U.S. Coast Guard, the base of a pollution containment chamber is moved to a construction area at Wild Well Control, Inc. in Port Fourchon, La., April 26, 2010. The chamber will be one of the largest ever built and will be used in an attempt to contain an oil leak related to the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon explosion. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard, Petty Officer Third Class Patrick Kelley)

Crews have had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or dispersing it with chemicals. For entire story go HERE

We have a second type of containment Dome. Not sure which one will be used.

How to stop the BP oil spill: What else can be tried now? May 3, 2010

Welders at work on the Pollution Control Dome being built in Port Fourchon Monday, as BP rushes to cap the source of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon platform disaster. BP might be ready to deploy the structure, which would funnel the oil into ships, by this weekend. Newscom For entire story goHERE

Obama toured the Coast.

The bulk of the slick is now nine miles offshore.

Mr Obama flew to New Orleans and drove for two hours to the tip of the Mississippi delta to show his concern for communities at risk of economic extinction from the growing oil slick to the south – and to show Americans that he has learnt from his predecessor’s mistakes. The visit was part of an urgent push by the White House to present its response to Louisiana’s latest disaster as more nimble than that of President Bush after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. For entire story goHERE

Iran offers to help contain US oil spill

May 3 2010

The National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) has offered to assist the US in efforts to prevent an ecological disaster caused by the spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Following an explosion on a BP-operated oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico last month, at least 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of crude oil are thought to be spilling into the water every day.

NIDC managing director Heidar Bahmani announced the firm’s readiness to use its decades-long expertise to fight the oil slick, the company’s public relations office told Press TV.

“Our oil industry experts in the field of drilling can contain the rig leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent an ecological disaster in that part of the world,” Bahmani said.

Overlooking the new US drive for slapping more UN sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear program, the company said that there is an urgent need for action to protect the nearby coasts from the advancing oil spill.

The governors of Alabama, Louisiana and Florida have reportedly called a state of emergency for fear of the oil slick’s environmental and economic damages.

The disaster has also prompted the White House to ban oil drillings in new areas of the US coast until the British company explains the cause of the explosion that killed 11 employees and resulted in the oil spill.

MICHAEL Quinn admits he threatened to shoot gas workers but he says the threat was, like the devil masks strung up in trees along his driveway, a bit of a joke.

April 8 2010

I just got angry because they laughed at me when I told them about leaking wells. They didn’t treat me seriously.

“I wanted them to feel the way they made me feel,” said the 43-year-old father of two, who has been charged as a result.

Mr Quinn and his family are so-called blockies – some of the several thousand residents living on cheap rural residential allotments on top of one of the richest coal-seam gas deposits in Queensland, about 250km northwest of Brisbane.

They are part of a growing grassroots backlash across the state. Tensions are rising among people who have no right to the riches buried beneath their land – the state holds that – but are enduring the increasingly invasive side effects of mining companies’ efforts to extract the gas.

The blockies’ scrubby, wattle-infested 12ha allotments are scattered in an arc about 10-15km north and east of the tiny town of Tara, where huge mining concerns like Queensland Gas Company are ramping up production to feed billion-dollar energy deals.

QGC is now part of Britain’s BG Group, one of several foreign and local energy giants crawling all over central Queensland in the recently ignited race to access buried reserves of coal-seam gas. ConocoPhillips of the US, Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, PetroChina, Malaysia’s Petronas and Australia’s Santos have all been attracted to the industry.

The blockies, or lifestylers as the council has renamed them to avoid negative connotations, moved there earlier, attracted by the cheap land and the opportunity to live a life away from the pressures of modern society. Many of the blocks have no town water or electricity.

But now the gas boom has brought mine workers and trucks close to their remote bush blocks, trenches have been dug for pipes and gas wells are being drilled throughout the area, sending some residents’ stress rates up to levels on par with the pressurised gas underground.

Since last year there have been protests, threats to shoot gasworkers and secret missions to video wells alleged to be leaking.

A child was pulled out of the local school and there have been confrontations in the main street and even claims of a boycott of the town by miners.

People who live in the small rural lots have been falsely labelled everything from ferals to nutty blockies who don’t bathe and who don’t want any gas company people around because it would interfere with their marijuana crops.

“We thought things had died down,” says councillor Ray Jamieson, of the Western Downs Regional Council, ” but now it seems to have escalated.”

Mr Jamieson believes gas companies saw the rural residential blocks on the maps and didn’t realise they were occupied by people who had moved to the area for the lifestyle.

QGC, which has a large lease area in and around the blocks, has drawn most of the ire despite what a company spokesman calls its efforts to minimise impact on landowners and to make a positive contribution to communities.

The message has not been received well by a number of those on the blocks, perhaps in part due to the efforts of former anti-uranium mine protester and trade unionist Michael Bretherick.

Mr Bretherick, 64, and fellow local Rod Matthews last year set up a website, Tarablockies.com, which represents the Western Downs Alliance, a group of residents living in the rural residential estates. The site raises concerns about potential impacts of coal-seam gas mining – pointing to negative scenarios in the US and publishing diagrams predicting the concentration of potential gas wells in the area.

Mr Matthews said he was moved to do something after having trucks thundering past his place at 2am and applying air brakes. “It started out chasing trucks with dust and noise, and snowballed and we looked into the health issues and there was the situation where they could come in and grab a couple of acres whether we liked it or not.”

The website has brought people out for local meetings and a protest last year at a Surat Basin meeting in Dalby.

Concerns include the health impacts of the gas and the disposal of waste water from the wells, the danger of explosions, low frequency noise, the impact of hydraulic fracturing which involves pumping water into the coal seams to improve gas flow and potential damage to aquifers.

Some residents claim their dams have been polluted, others report animals getting sick and pollution from the dust contaminating drinking-water tanks.

Mr Bretherick admits his website and campaign have prompted residents to agitate, but he says much of it has been blown out of proportion – like the incident last year when gas workers in the main street were confronted by a local resident.

The fallout had different results, depending on who you ask.

Mr Jamieson says it led to QGC telling workers to stay out of town for safety reasons.

But QGC denies the claim and any allegations about its operations affecting the health of residents.

Mr Jamieson says things have calmed down and that workers go into town now.

Another problem arose last September when a schoolteacher allegedly made comments about the Tarablockies website.

The daughter of Mr Matthews, who founded the site, was in the class and she used her mobile phone to video the comments.

“It was a bagging session on the website and the blockies,” said the girl’s mother, who asked not to be named.

Mr Matthews says his children now go to school elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Mr Quinn and others were convinced the wells were such a danger they were hissing. He invested in a gas meter and went on clandestine monitoring missions, testing more than 50. He says dozens were leaking methane at dangerous levels. He videotaped his findings and showed them to the state government.

QGC vigorously denies such problems still exist and the Queensland government has not found any leaking.

But Mr Quinn still believes there is a problem and last month confronted some QGC workers.

He says he told the workers to check the leaks but believes they laughed at him.

He says that later in the day he saw two more workers and this time told them to pass the message on that if the leaks were not fixed he would shoot.

Mr Quinn says the threat was not real and he went to the police to report what he had done.

Last week he appeared in the local magistrates court on two charges relating to his threats to kill. He is to appear in court again in about two weeks.

“I don’t have any guns. I just said it because they were making a joke about it,” he says.

Mr Quinn, who has worked in the goldmining industry, says he is not “anti-gas” but does not believe the wells should be near houses, in case of an explosion.

How much support the Tarablockies/Western Downs Alliance has is difficult to gauge.

Western Downs Mayor Ray Brown says not all the small lot dwellers are against the gas, and some of them work for the gas companies.

QGC admits there have been issues with some landowners complaining about dust, water, noise and environmental impact.

But the company denies there is any unacceptable health and safety risk from their facilities to staff or residents.

A spokesman says the company has “instigated several additional work streams to reassure itself and the regulator of the safety an integrity of its facilities”.

He says the company’s code of conduct means wells will not be located on properties with an area of less than 12ha without agreement of the property owner.

The company confirms hydraulic fracturing near Tara in May last year, but says it had minimal impact.

It also says it is developing beneficial use for the salty water which is produced by the process and the water itself is only one-tenth as salty as sea water.

Queensland Mines and Energy Minister Stephen Robertson has directed QGC to inspect its wells for leaks, and fix them if necessary.

Last week BG, which owns QGC, announced it had struck a deal to supply Tokyo Gas 1.2 million tonnes of LNG each year for the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, Mr Bretherick, Mr Matthews and Mr Quinn are not giving up.

Mr Bretherick says this week he had the 60 Minutes current affairs program calling him up to investigate his case.

According to Mehmanparast, the conference dubbed “Nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none,” will be held in Tehran on March 17th and 18th.

“Officials from various countries, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations have been invited to attend the conference,” the Iranian spokesperson added.

“The conference has been widely welcomed by all countries,” he went on to say.

Mehmanparast further pointed out that all the countries in the world have the right to use peaceful nuclear energy.

“We believe the world must be free from nuclear weapons,” he asserted.

Earlier, Mehmanparast had urged the countries which possess nuclear weapons to destroy their atomic armaments.

“We insist that all countries must be committed to nuclear disarmament,” he said early February. Source

Well we all full well know the US nor Israel will ever get rid of their Nuclear Bombs. But kudos to Iran for attempting this type of meeting.

This is a greater threat to the US and Israel then Iran actually getting a Nuclear Bomb. Both the US and Israel would have to give up their Nuclear Weapons. They are the two countries that more times then not are the ones who also start the wars. They are the warmongers. Loosing their Nuclear Weapons would be their worst nightmare. They will fight this tooth and nail.

India snubs US, to attend nuclear meet in Iran

April 4 2010

The Indian government will stand by its decision to take part in a nuclear meeting slated for mid-April in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in a move that is set to irk the US administration.

According to a report published by The Hindustan Times on Sunday, the conference dubbed “Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapon for None” will be held on April 17 and 18 in Tehran. The Indian Ambassador to Iran, Sanjay Singh, will represent India at the event, which will be attended by ministers, officials and nuclear experts from over 55 countries.

The decision to participate in the international nuclear disarmament meet comes while Washington continues its efforts to impose new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

The Tehran event will be held only days after a nuclear security summit between US President Barak Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington on April 12 and 13.

Earlier, India rejected a call from the US to walk away from pipeline project carrying natural gas from Iran through Pakistan, saying “energy security” is a priority for its rapidly growing economy.

Iran and Pakistan inked a deal in March to construct a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline connecting the two neighboring countries, and India is interested in the further extension of the line to its borders if the pipeline’s security can be guaranteed in Pakistan. The project is strongly opposed by the US. The deal is part of the long-delayed $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. Source

Israel to use anti-Iran strike to win Chinese backing

The Israeli regime plans to send its top military strategist to China this week to convince Beijing to back sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.

Head of Tel Aviv army’s planning directorate Major General Amir Eshel intends to serve Beijing with ‘renewed’ threats of military strikes against Iran, wishing to persuade China to follow along with the US-led push at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, British weekly newspaper The Sunday Times reported today.

According to the weekly, a subsidiary of the multi-national press conglomerate The News Corporation owned by Jewish media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Eshel will warn officials in Beijing that an Israeli military attack on Iran could disrupt oil supplies to China and its rapidly growing economy.

Tehran has repeatedly dismissed Israeli threats of military strikes against Iran as psychological warfare aimed at pressuring the Islamic Republic to abandon its peaceful nuclear work while insisting that any efforts to materialize such threats will encounter a ‘painful’ response.

The Israeli regime and its Western backers have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon capability under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran, however, has fiercely dismissed such claims as mere attempts by Western nuclear powers to prevent Iran’s rapid advances in the field of nuclear technology.

Aggressive Israeli efforts against Iran’s nuclear program come despite widespread reports of its possession of over 200 nuclear warheads that was acquired with blessings from Tel Aviv’s Western sponsors. Israel has refused to sign or commit to any international atomic regulatory treaties.

Meanwhile, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has opened its nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections and round-the-clock supervision by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Moreover, Iran has also called for an international abandonment of all nuclear weapon arsenals and development efforts, which has been ignored by all countries possessing nuclear weapons.

IAEA has repeatedly reported that it has found no evidence of any diversion of nuclear materials from civilian to military applications in Iran.

That, however, has not stopped Washington from seeking to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran through the UNSC.

Tehran insists that the sanctions are illegal as they aim to deny the Islamic Republic the legitimate right to full nuclear fuel cycle for civilian use, in contradiction to NPT regulations.

China, a veto-wielding member of the UNSC, has so far resisted US pressure to toughen embargoes against Tehran, insisting on continued dialogue as the appropriate channel to resolve nuclear concerns about Iran.

However, Israeli and its American sponsor have recently stepped up efforts to pressure China to fall in line with the sanctions drive.

The US and Israel have been collaborating closely in recent months to intensify efforts to muster support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. These efforts have included using press reports and allied countries to generate a high level of urgency on the issue.

For instance, US tried to get Saudi Arabia to intervene on the matter by enticing China with attractive oil deals in order to drive a wedge between Beijing and Tehran, prompting Chinese consent to the US-led sanctions efforts.

Meanwhile, press reports spread rumors last month that the Saudis have given the Israeli regime the permission to use their air space for any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a claim denied by Riyadh.

Iranian officials have scorned US claims that their sanctions drive enjoys international backing, arguing that Europe and the Israeli regime do not constitute a global representation. Source

Both the US and Israel are trying to dictate to other countries what they should do. I do believe all countries have the right to progress in a peaceful way they see fit and not bend to the will of the two who are the warmongers.

After all they are the warmongers who create fabricated documents and fabricated reasons to go to war. They are the two that lie their way to wars.

Why would anyone trust either country is beyond me. These are the two countries that literally piss off the rest of the world with their wars on innocent people.. Their actions speak for themselves.

Billions around the world have protested against both of them and for good reason. They are the planets bullies. Both countries have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The criminals behind those crimes are still warmongers and walking free.

Maybe it is time for the US and Israel shut up and listen to the rest of the world.

Today is World Water Day: How did Americans begin to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap???Annie Leonard: The Story of Bottled Water
March 22, 2010

The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industrys attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

Our production partners on the bottled water film include five leading sustainability groups: Corporate Accountability International, Environmental Working Group, Food & Water Watch, Pacific Institute, and Polaris Institute.

A: When the Canadian Government says it should be a dump for mine waste.

Lakes across Canada are being destroyed by mining waste. Lakes that would normally be protected as fish habitat by the Fisheries Act are now being redefined as “tailings impoundment areas” according to a 2002 “schedule” added to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations of the Act. Once added to Schedule 2, healthy freshwater lakes lose all protection and become dump sites for mining waste. Mining companies have the go-ahead to dump their tailings into perfectly healthy bodies of water, such as Sandy Pond in Newfoundland and Fish Lake in British Columbia. Twelve pristine water bodies are currently slated for destruction under this law.

Vancouver-based Taseko Mines Ltd is proposing to drain Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) in B.C. in order to stockpile solid waste and use Fish Creek and Little Fish Lake as tailings impoundment areas for a gold-copper mining project called Prosperity Mine. Read more about Teztan Biny here and find out what you can do to help save this lake.

Sandy Pond, near Long Harbour, N.L., is also on the hit list. The mine tailings that Vale Inco plans to dump into the lake will destroy the lake, causing irreversible damage.

WASHINGTON — The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel

Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.

“This was a political decision,” an official said.

In 2008, the United States approved an Israeli request for bunker-busters capable of destroying underground facilities, including Iranian nuclear weapons sites. Officials said delivery of the weapons was held up by the administration of President Barack Obama.

Since taking office, Obama has refused to approve any major Israeli requests for U.S. weapons platforms or advanced systems. Officials said this included proposed Israeli procurement of AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E.

“All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010,” a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests said. “This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly.”

Under the plan, the U.S. military was to have stored 195 BLU-110 and 192 BLU-117 munitions in unspecified air force bases in Israel. The U.S. military uses four Israeli bases for the storage of about $400 million worth of pre-positioned equipment meant for use by either Washington or Jerusalem in any regional war.

In January 2010, the administration agreed to an Israeli request to double the amount of U.S. military stockpiles to $800 million. Officials said the bunker-busters as well as Patriot missile interceptors were included in the agreement.

The decision to divert the BLU munitions was taken amid the crisis between Israel and the United States over planned construction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem. The administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has warned that Washington could reduce military aid to Israel because of its construction policy.

In 2007, after its war in Lebanon, Israel requested 2,000 BLU-109 live bombs from the United States. The 2,000-pound bomb, produced by Boeing and coupled with a laser guidance kit, was designed to penetrate concrete bunkers and other underground hardened sites.

Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was quoted as saying that his country faced its biggest crisis with the United States since 1975. A pro-Israel lobbyist said Oren was referring to the current U.S. embargo, which echoed a decision taken 35 years ago by then-President Gerald Ford after Israel’s refusal to withdraw from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Oren has since denied the remark.

They use the weapons to destroy the lives of defenseless Palestinians. They have no bombs, planes, tanks etc. They are defenseless.

Anyone who supplies weapons to Israel need to re-examine their position.

Israel spends billions a year on weapons.

Meanwhile Palestinians don’t have enough food, medical supplies or materials to rebuild. They live in a prison. Even those in the West Bank are treated horridly. Daily bad things happen to them. Arrests, land theft, destroyed homes, etc.

Israel is the master of fabricating lies to justify their actions. Of course they use the same old sorry lies over and over however. They demonize anyone who speaks out against their actions. Israeli leaders and Lobby groups perpetrate more hate towards others then any group I am aware of. They even demonize Jews. They perpetrate more ant Antisemitism then anyone. Sad but true.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is leaving for Washington tonight, has promised the Obama administration Israel will make several goodwill gestures toward the Palestinian Authority in response to Washington’s demands.

For the first time since Operation Cast Lead, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Netanyahu has agreed to discuss all core issues during the proximity talks, with the condition of reaching final conclusions only in direct talks with the PA.

Netanyahu also agreed to discuss the core issues in the dispute – including borders, refugees, Jerusalem, security arrangements, water and settlements – already during indirect talks, although summations would be made in direct talks with the PA president.

Netanyahu responded to Washington’s demands during his telephone call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday night. Clinton said on Friday that Netanyahu’s response “was useful and productive, and we’re continuing our discussions with him and his government.”

Netanyahu refused to revoke the building project in Ramat Shlomo or freeze construction in East Jerusalem. He also promised a better oversight system to prevent embarrassing incidents such as the one that triggered the crisis with the U.S. during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit.

Senior officials in Jerusalem said that the prime minister’s gestures include relieving the blockade on Gaza and enabling the UN to transport construction materials to rebuild sewerage systems and a large flour mill, and build 150 apartments in Khan Yunis.

Netanyahu also agreed to release hundreds of Fatah-affiliated prisoners as a gesture to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in keeping with the view of the defense establishment on the effect this will have on the release of Gilad Shalit.

Netanyahu is scheduled to leave for Washington tonight with Defense Minister Ehud Barak to attend the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington. Opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni and Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau will also attend the convention.

Netanyahu is slated to address the convention tomorrow at 7 P.M. (Israel time), then meet Clinton, who is also to speak at the AIPAC gathering. No meeting has been set yet between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, but Israeli officials believe such a meeting will take place on Tuesday in the White House, and contacts are progressing in this regard.

Israel’s Washington envoy Michael Oren said yesterday that outsiders cannot force peace on the Middle East, and any final settlement will have to be initiated by the Israelis and Palestinians themselves. Oren spoke in an interview with U.S. television station PBS. Oren said Israel was not interested in having the White House present its own peace plan, in view of the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Any attempt by the United States to impose a peace deal would be like “forcing somebody to fall in love,” Oren said.

Asked if Israel wanted Washington to present its own peace plan, Oren said: “No. I think peace has to be made between two people sitting across a table. America can help facilitate that interaction.”

Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said yesterday after getting a closer look at Israeli enclaves in the West Bank that Israeli settlement building anywhere on occupied land is illegal and must be stopped. “The world has condemned Israel’s settlement plans in East Jerusalem,” Ban told a news conference after his brief tour. “Let us be clear. All settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory and must be stopped.”

(GARDEN GROVE, Calif.) – As a member of Veterans-For-Change, an advocacy group for Veterans rights, benefits, and treatment, my co-members and I would like to bring to your attention the ever-increasing serious problems affecting veterans and their families every day.

President Barack Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention held in Phoenix, Arizona on August 17, 2009. He stated, “Whether you left the service in 2009 or 1949, we will fulfill our responsibility to deliver the benefits and care that you earned. That’s why I’ve pledged to build nothing less than a 21st-century VA.”

Perhaps you are not aware of the problems affiliated with the VA and Veterans Benefits. Veterans-For-Change would like to address the following problems/issues.

Blue Water Navy & Agent Orange:

Every day, thousands of veterans who served on land and in the waters in Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and CONUS are denied benefits they are entitled to for exposure to dioxin from Agent Orange and other defoliants.

In both S.E. Asia and CONUS Agent Orange was used at least from 1963 through 1975 although there have been reports of use and disposal activities as late as 1978 in Korea as a defoliant. In S.E. Asia, the chemicals were used to protect our troops and prevent the enemy from hiding in the foliage to kill many more of our fighting men and women.

In the CONUS, they were used to keep surroundings of various military buildings free from unwanted vegetation growth and keep it clean and neat looking.

Veterans who served not just in Korea since 1962 but also on the DMZ are denied benefits due to erroneous reports about where these chemicals were deployed and that there is a “residual life” of Agent Orange Dioxin which if this was true, then why are we in Vietnam helping the Vietnamese government to clean up the land that was contaminated some 40 years ago.

According to the reliable website, publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/, “October 13, 2009 Secretary Shinseki decided to establish service-connection for Vietnam Veterans with B cell leukemia, such as hairy cell leukemia; Parkinson’s disease; and ischemic heart disease. This is based on an independent study by the Institute of Medicine showing an association with exposure to Agent Orange. Vietnam veterans with these diseases may be eligible for disability compensation and health care benefits”, however, Secretary Shinseki failed to acknowledge the recommendation for presumption of exposure for the Blue Water Navy.

Veterans-For-Change believes exposure to Agent Orange is truly exposure to a deadly chemical, regardless of the location where it was deployed. One of the chemicals in the Agent Orange herbicide combination contained contaminating traces of TCDD (dioxin). Dioxin has been shown to cause a variety of illnesses in laboratory animals. Studies also suggest that the chemical may be related to a number of cancers and other health effects in humans: publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/health_effects.asp

The research data speaks for itself – Agent Orange was and is a deadly, toxic chemical, destroying the health and lives of many Veterans, including those who served in Korea and on the DMZ.

Many of these Veterans are continuously denied as the missions they served on were, and still to this day remain, classified by the DoD even though former President Bush signed executive order 13292 on March 28, 2003 directing classified missions beyond 25 years be declassified.

Now President Obama has signed Executive Order 13526 to declassify mission orders based on the 25 year rule.

Veterans-For-Change, as an advocacy group, has as its mission to broadcast and inform all veterans about their rights concerning Agent Orange, regardless of when and where the military veteran was exposed. You, the legislators of our proud and courageous country owe a debt of not just gratitude, but benefits and care to our veterans. Please take a stand and help us to provide the best care for our veterans. Take action today

For over a year now there have been media outlets such as CNN, Salem News, Veterans Today and countless local newspapers in each region of our nation telling stories of active duty military, veterans and their families all being diagnosed with many unexplained illnesses.

Studies have shown, and evidence presented by several sources showing TCE (chemical degreaser) and PCE (chemical dry cleaning solution) have been used on most, if not all military bases throughout the Continental United States dating back to the mid 1950’s and disposed of by simply dumping waste into the ground. Both chemicals are known carcinogens.

Most recently TCE has been heavily addressed surrounding the Marine Corps Base Camp LeJeune, North Carolina where there was a Male Breast Cancer Cluster. According to a recent report, Camp LeJeune is where at least 40 men reported a cancer cluster in this location, all related to exposure at Camp LeJeune, according to the St. Petersburg Times. According to the report published, “A Marine Corps spokesman declined to comment on the cancer cluster, saying epidemiologists were better qualified, but the spokesman noted the Marine Corps had spent approximately 14.5 million on research initiatives regarding health issues…” Perhaps it would be of interest to you to get to the bottom of this so our military will be better protected, able to fight wars, and our Veterans will live a healthier life, proud of their military service and the actions they took to preserve and protect the freedom of American citizens, such as yourself.

Tests have proven the drinking water not only on this base, but other bases as well were contaminated, thus contaminating military personnel and their families as well as civilian personnel who worked on the bases. And let us not forget that TCE/PCE was used on board all ships as well and that cleaning clothing, showering washing hands all put this chemical into their water purification system, also contaminating all those who work and lived on board our ships!

Clear Cell Carcinoma, liver & kidney cancer, esophageal cancer, breast cancer in men and women, children with Leukemia and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma are just some of the illnesses veterans and their families suffer from exposure to these contaminants. Many of these cancers, such as esophageal cancer are terminal, with only a 5% survival rate!

Veterans-For-Change has drafted a bill and we are actively gathering petition signatures to get any member of Congress to sign and present to the floor for a vote and passage to give the benefits to these families who are so desperately in need of medical treatment, healthcare and funding!

Veterans-For-Change would like to know, will you be the one who steps up to the plate and will sign and present this bill?

Contracted Medical Care:

When VA Medical Centers are not readily available, or aren’t able to provide services and care needed in that region, private facilities are contracted.

Less veterans are properly and adequately served and the costs to the taxpayer is several times higher than if the VA would simply add on to a facility to meet the need and/or build a VA Medical Center where needed most to meet the veteran community needs.

Most contracted facilities aren’t even up to par with the standard of health care, charge more and offer less and there are no controls nor is there any over-sight.

A shining example of need are the 100,000 veterans of the Rio Grande Valley who are expected to drive 250 miles each way to the nearest VA Medical Center, and are only provided a very small contracted clinic which is nothing more than an industrial injury clinic, nowhere near able to handle and or understand veterans who suffer illnesses caused by Dioxins, TCE, PCE, Burn Pit fumes, PTSD, etc.

Veterans-For-Change expects members of Congress to uphold the promises of decades to care for those who fought to defend our Country, and to practice what was established by the Continental Congress in 1776 — “the United States has the most comprehensive system of assistance for veterans for any nation in the world.” Now, in the Twenty First Century, it is time to draft, sign, and present legislation to correct wrongs from centuries ago. It is time to practice what was created and promised to motivate, service and care for our veterans – ‘nothing less than a 21st-century VA.’

President Obama has said: “We have a sacred trust with those who wear the uniform of the United States of America, a commitment that begins with enlistment and must never end.”

If our nation rescinds its promises and ignores its obligation to those who have fought to preserve freedom throughout the world, we compromise the right to ask our men and women to serve and defend our national principals. The choice is yours. With the election of 2010 in mind, please take action to defend and service our country and our proud and deserving veterans today!

Veterans-For-Change has been crying out to all 535 members of Congress going on four years this April 2010, as President Wilson said, a leader’s ears must ring with the voices of the people! Veteran’s voices will be ringing in the polling places come November! Do you hear us?

March 18, 2010 : Gulf War Veterans need to be made aware of the following articles. Alert for all female veterans you know the drill! Self Breast Checks often and Mammograms. VA does provide this, so make use of that service!

Male Veterans yes you too can get breast cancer. Again our females will have to teach you the principles of breast self exams. Basically you work in a clockwise pattern and outward and inner in direction from the clock face. If you palpate any lumps or bumps under the skin GET IN TO A DOCTOR for further Assessment!

China Friday retorted U.S. criticism by publishing its own report on the U.S. human rights record.

“As in previous years, the (U.S.) reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory,” said the Information Office of the State Council in its report on the U.S. human rights record.

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 was in retaliation to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 issued by the U.S. Department of State on March 11.

The report is “prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States,” said the report.

The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2009 from six perspectives: life, property and personal security; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; rights of women and children; and the U.S.’ violation of human rights against other countries.

It criticized the United States for taking human rights as “a political instrument to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests.”

China advised the U.S. government to draw lessons from the history, put itself in a correct position, strive to improve its own human rights conditions and rectify its acts in the human rights field.

This is the 11th consecutive year that the Information Office of China’s State Council has issued a human rights record of the United States to answer the U.S. State Department’s annual report.

“At a time when the world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the U.S. subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the U.S. government still ignores its own serious human rights problems but revels in accusing other countries. It is really a pity,” the report said.

Spying on citizens

While advocating “freedom of speech,” “freedom of the press” and “Internet freedom,” the U.S. government unscrupulously monitors and restricts the citizens’ rights to freedom when it comes to its own interests and needs, the report said.

The U.S. citizens’ freedom to access and distribute information is under strict supervision, it said.

According to media reports, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) started installing specialized eavesdropping equipment around the country to wiretap calls, faxes, and emails and collect domestic communications as early as 2001.

The wiretapping program was originally targeted at Arab-Americans, but soon grew to include other Americans.

After the September 11 attack, the U.S. government, in the name of anti-terrorism, authorized its intelligence authorities to hack into its citizens’ mail communications, and to monitor and erase any information that might threaten the U.S. national interests on the Internet through technical means, the report said.

Statistics showed that from 2002 to 2006, the FBI collected thousands of phones records of U.S. citizens through mails, notes and phone calls.

In September 2009, the country set up an Internet security supervision body, further worrying U.S. citizens that the U.S. government might use Internet security as an excuse to monitor and interfere with personal systems.

The so-called “freedom of the press” of the United States was in fact completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated by the U.S. government, the report said.

At yearend 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a bill which imposed sanctions on several Arab satellite channels for broadcasting contents hostile to the U.S. and instigating violence.

Racial discrimination a chronic problem

Racial discrimination is still a chronic problem of the United States, the report said.

Black people and other minorities are the most impoverished groups in the United States.

According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, the real median income for American households in 2008 was 50,303 U.S. dollars, but the median incomes of Hispanic and black households were roughly 68 percent and 61.6 percent of that of the non-Hispanic white households.

And the median income of minority groups was about 60 to 80 percent of that of majority groups under the same conditions of education and skill background, the report added.

Ethnic minorities have been subject to serious racial discrimination in employment and workplace, the report said.

Minority groups bear the brunt of the U.S. unemployment. According to news reports, the U.S. unemployment rate in October 2009 was 10.2 percent. The jobless rate of the U.S. African-Americans jumped to 15.7 percent, that of the Hispanic rose to 13.1 percent and that of the white was 9.5 percent, the USA Today reported.

The U.S. minority groups face discriminations in education. According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, 33 percent of the non-Hispanic white has college degrees, proportion of the black was only 20 percent and Hispanic was 13 percent.

Racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial system is very distinct. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, by the end of 2008, 3,161 men and 149 women per 100,000 persons in the U.S. black population were under imprisonment.

And a report released by New York City Police Department said that of the people involved in police shootings whose ethnicity could be determined in 2008, 75 percent were black, 22 percent were Hispanic; and 3 percent were white.

Ethnic hatred crimes are frequent. According to statistics released by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, a total of 7,783 hatred crimes occurred in 2008 in the United States, 51.3 percent of which were originated by racial discrimination and 19.5 percent were for religious bias and 11.5 percent were for national origins.

Widespread violent crimes

Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people, the report said.

In 2008, U.S. residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over.

About 30,000 people die from gun-related incidents each year. According to an FBI report, there had been 14,180 murder victims in 2008, the report said.

Campuses became an area worst hit by violent crimes as shootings spread there and kept escalating. The U.S. Heritage Foundation reported that 11.3 percent of high school students in Washington D.C. reported being “threatened or injured” with a weapon while on school property during the 2007-2008 school year.

Abuse of power

The country’s police frequently impose violence on the people and abuse of power is common among U.S. law enforcers, the report said,

Over the past two years, the number of New York police officers under review for garnering too many complaints was up 50 percent.

In major U.S. cities, police stop, question and frisk more than a million people each year, a sharply higher number than just a few years ago.

Prisons in the United State are packed with inmates. About 2.3 million were held in custody of prisons and jails, the equivalent of about one in every 198 persons in the country, according to the report.

From 2000 to 2008, the U.S. prison population increased an average of 1.8 percent annually.

The basic rights of prisoners in the United States are not well-protected. Raping cases of inmates by prison staff members are widely reported, the report said.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, reports of sexual misconduct by prison staff members with inmates in the country’s 93 federal prison sites doubled over the past eight years.

According to a federal survey of more than 63,000 federal and state inmates, 4.5 percent reported being sexually abused at least once during the previous 12 months.

Poverty leads to rising number of suicides

The report said the population in poverty was the largest in 11 years.

The Washington Post reported that altogether 39.8 million Americans were living in poverty by the end of 2008, an increase of 2.6 million from that in 2007. The poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, the highest since 1998.

Poverty led to a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the United States. It is reported that there are roughly 32,000 suicides in the U.S. every year, double the cases of murder, said the report.

Workers’ rights not properly guaranteed

Workers’ rights were seriously violated in the United States, the report said.

The New York Times reported that about 68 percent of the 4,387 low-wage workers in a survey said they had experienced reduction of wages and 76 percent of those who had worked overtime were not paid accordingly.

The number of people without medical insurance has kept rising for eight consecutive years, the report said.

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau showed 46.3 million people were without medical insurance in 2008, accounting for 15.4 percent of the total population, comparing with 45.7 million people who were without medical insurance in 2007, which was a rise for the eighth year in a row.

Women, children frequent victims of violence

Women are frequent victims of violence and sexual assault in the United States, while children are exposed to violence and living in fear, the report said.

It is reported that the United States has the highest rape rate among countries which report such statistics. It is 13 times higher than that of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan.

Reuters reported that based on in-depth interviews on 40 servicewomen, 10 said they had been raped, five said they were sexually assaulted including attempted rape, and 13 reported sexual harassment.

It is reported that 1,494 children younger than 18 nationwide were murdered in 2008, the USA Today reported.

A survey conducted by the U.S. Justice Department on 4,549 kids and adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008 showed, more than 60 percent of children surveyed were exposed to violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly.

Trampling upon other countries ‘ sovereignty, human rights

The report said the United States with its strong military power has pursued hegemony in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and trespassing their human rights.

As the world’s biggest arms seller, its deals have greatly fueled instability across the world. The United States also expanded its military spending, already the largest in the world, by 10 percent in 2008 to 607 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 42 percent of the world total, the AP reported.

At the beginning of 2010, the U.S. government announced a 6.4-billion-U.S. dollar arms sales package to Taiwan despite strong protest from the Chinese government and people, which seriously damaged China’s national security interests and aroused strong indignation among the Chinese people, it said.

The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan have placed heavy burden on American people and brought tremendous casualties and property losses to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the report.

Prisoner abuse is one of the biggest human rights scandals of the United States, it said

An investigation by U.S. Justice Department showed 2,000 Taliban surrendered combatants were suffocated to death by the U.S. army-controlled Afghan armed forces, the report said.

The United States has been building its military bases around the world, and cases of violation of local people’s human rights are often seen, the report said.

The United States is now maintaining 900 bases worldwide, with more than 190,000 military personnel and 115,000 relevant staff stationed.

These bases are bringing serious damage and environmental contamination to the localities. Toxic substances caused by bomb explosions are taking their tolls on the local children, it said.

It has been reported that toward the end of the U.S. military bases’ presence in Subic and Clark Philippines, as many as 3,000 cases of raping local women had been filed against the U.S. servicemen, but all were dismissed, according to the report.

U.S. on List of UNICEF’s Worst Countries for Kids

February 14, 2007

A new report from the U.N. Children’s Fund says the United States and Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world in which to be a child. UNICEF says an examination of 40 factors, such as poverty, deprivation, happiness, relationships, and risky or bad behavior puts the United States and Britain at the bottom of a list of 21 economically developed nations.

The UNICEF report sought to assess children’s well-being in developed countries by measuring a number of factors, including health, education, poverty, family relationships, and bad or risky behavior. Children were also asked to say whether they were happy.

In the overall table of children’s well-being, the Netherlands comes out on top, followed closely by the Scandinavian countries, which also have highly developed welfare systems. At the bottom are the United States at No. 20, and Britain at No. 21.

It’s not that developed welfare states necessarily have happier children, says David Parker of UNICEF.

“I think what we know from history in the U.S.,” Parker says, “is that it’s not necessarily how the welfare is provided but the nature of the support. One of the key things is that the role of government is important, but the entire society must have at its heart the idea of improving child well-being.”

The United States fared worst of all 21 countries in health and safety, measured by rates of infant mortality and accidents and injuries.

The United States and Britain were lowest overall in the category of behavior and risks, meaning that American and British children are more likely to use drugs, drink alcohol and be sexually active than children elsewhere.

Professor Jonathan Bradshaw from the University of York in England led the research into the project. He was scathing about the failures of successive British governments.

“We’ve failed to invest in child health, in child education, in child care,” Bradshaw says. “It’s the result of neglect, which other countries have not done… they’ve just spent more on their children, despite the fact they’re not as rich as we are.”

In almost all the categories, poorer nations such as Poland and the Czech Republic fared better than the United States and Britain.

January 26 2010
Gaza’s only power station will close by the end of this week following a European Union decision to stop buying fuel for the plant. According to the power station’s director, Rafeeq Maliha, “Since last November the EU has stopped funding the purchase of diesel for us.” This means, he added, that without some external intervention between now and this weekend, the densely populated Gaza Strip will have no central power source to operate many basic services.

Engineer Imad Canaan, the vice president of the Palestinian Power Authority explained that the power authority is unable to continue providing adequate energy resources to the citizens of Gaza. “The Israeli blockade and the suspension of EU support have reduced the output of the station by 50%,” he said.

The Gaza Power Station has been bombarded repeatedly and deliberately by Israel, most notably during the assault and invasion a year ago when the Israelis targeted the civilian infrastructure. The Israeli blockade of Gaza has prevented vital repair materials being imported; these are essential if the power station is to return to full operational capacity. Source

Sewage Collapse threatens the health of Palestinians in Gaza

January 27 2010

Palestinians in Gaza have a lot to contend with, especially since the war launched by the Israeli Occupiers just over a year ago. With the loss of more than 1,400 Palestinian lives, most of whom were women and children, the near total destruction of whatever little infrastructure that remained and the general pillaging of the territory, Palestinians are once again faced with the prospect of rebuilding their lives in the besieged Gaza Strip.

However, because of the ongoing Israeli blockade on essential materials, the Palestinians have not been able to carry out any reconstruction of their houses, hospitals, schools and the local infrastructure, including the power station and sewage treatment plants. Sewage disposal has become a huge problem all over Gaza, with leaks onto farmland and into nearby water sources leading to pollution and less fertile soil, which in turn has led to poor harvests. Sewage and waste material from cities and refugee camps with limited access to sewage treatment plants is ending up in water sources which lead to the beaches of Gaza and the sea. This has resulted in severe water pollution and the contamination of fish, as well as a variety of acute and chronic water-borne diseases.

Israelis impose “financial punishments” on Palestinians

A human rights organisation has claimed that Israeli prison staff are imposing financial punishments on Palestinian prisoners. In a statement, the Prisoners’ Centre for Studies said that guards and administrators in Israeli prisons force Palestinian detainees to pay for the water and electricity that they consume as a form of additional punishment.

According to the centre, prisoners are also “fined” for trivial reasons, such as reading the Qur’an or praying during the prison’s daily roll call (if officers enter when it is the time for prayer); if the imam, while giving the Friday sermon, utters a word that the guards don’t like; when a prisoner doesn’t manage to get out of the bathroom in the time specified by the guards; and for other similar reasons when the guards abuse their positions and use any excuse to penalise prisoners.

The centre’s director, Raafat Hamdouna, claims that prison administrators withdraw the “fines” from prisoners’ personal bank accounts without informing prisoners. If anyone doesn’t have a bank account, the administration imposes a future fine against his name, provoking the prisoner even further.

Mr. Hamdouna called upon human rights and humanitarian organizations to intervene to stop this unreasonable behaviour. “The Israelis treat prisoners like tenants and force them to pay for water, electricity, food and accommodation,” he added. Source

Fifty-four members of Congress urging the president to pressure Israel to treat Gazans like human beings is a positive development, albeit a VERY small one. Critics may content that the letter protects Israel’s image. I understand that. But I still think it’s encouraging.

Names of the 54 are at the above link. Just so we know who actually cares about the people of Gaza.

Gaza is in desperate need of materials to repair rebuild. Soon they will have no hydro. So just imagine if you had no hydro. This will affect evrything from hospitals to bussiniesses and storage of food and the list goes on an on.

Aid money was promised to help rebuild Gaza and little to none has been received by them. The blockade keeps everything out. This is also in the face of arecent flood in Gaza which has done even more damage. This of course was never in the main stream media. How typical.

Of course much of what we should be told is never in the main stream media.

Shame on them. Shame on the world leaders who do nothing but talk about it.

That is all they do is talk. Of course that makes it into the media and fools the public at large that they are actually doing something, when in fact they are really doing nothing. What has changed for those in Gaza or the West bank in the last year. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

Their lives go from bad to worse is all. Every day their lives are more difficult. Thanks to the world leaders who pretend to do something. That is all they do is pretend. They are doing little to help ease the pain and suffering of the Palestinians.

Seems the EU and Western Countries have done little to nothing to help those in Gaza.

Due to the lack of real help people are suffering beyond imagination. Ignored by the Main stream media and World Leaders. Tiger Woods got more air time then people who are suffering and dieing. Well that says it all doesn’t it.

How coincidental the Gaza flood took place during the Haiti Crisis.

Guaranteed it would be ignored by all the main stream media.

Gaza is in crisis and no one seems to notice. The 54 who signed the letter to Obama at least care enough to try. Will Obama listen I hardly thing so he is helping Egypt built the wall of shame and it is a shame. He has done nothing to ease the desperation of those in Gaza and if any time he says he is doing something I know as many other do it is pure BS. His actions and those of the US Government speaks volumes. They want to destroy the people of Gaza.

The blockade is killing Gaza, say NGOs and UN agencies

January 22 2010

One year after Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, United Nations agencies and the Association for International Development Agencies (AIDA), representing over 80 NGOs, are highlighting the impact of the blockade on Gaza on the health of its population and on health services – and are calling for an immediate opening of Gaza’s crossings.

Max Gaylard, the Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said on Wednesday 20 January 2010 that “the continuing closure of the Gaza Strip is undermining the functioning of the health care system and putting at risk the health of 1.4 million people in Gaza.”

He continued: “It is causing on-going deterioration in the social, economic and environmental determinants of health. It is hampering the provision of medical supplies and the training of health staff and it is preventing patients with serious medical conditions getting timely specialised treatment outside Gaza”

The economy of Gaza is in virtual collapse with rising unemployment and poverty which will have long term adverse effects on the physical and mental health of the population. The environment is also in decline, including water quality, sewage and waste disposal and other environmental hazards (including munitions and medical waste) which may lead to long term effects on health.

More than 750,000 children live in Gaza. The humanitarian community is gravely concerned about the future of this generation whose health needs are not being met. The decline in infant mortality, which has fallen steadily over recent decades, has stalled in the last few years.

The lack of building materials as a result of the blockade is affecting essential health facilities: the new surgical wing in Gaza’s main Shifa hospital has remained unfinished since 2006. Hospitals and primary care facilities, damaged during operation ‘Cast Lead’, have not been rebuilt because construction materials are not allowed into Gaza.

Operation ‘Cast Lead’ damaged 15 of Gaza’s 27 hospitals and 43 of its 110 primary health care facilities were either damaged or destroyed.

Supplies of drugs and disposables have generally been allowed into Gaza – though there are often shortages on the ground. However, certain types of medical equipment, such as x-ray equipment and electronic devices are very difficult to bring in. Clinical staff frequently lack the medical equipment they need. Medical devices are often broken, missing spare parts, or out of date.

Health professionals in Gaza have been cut off from the outside world. Since 2000, very few doctors, nurses or technicians have been able to leave the Strip for training necessary to update their clinical skills or to learn about new medical technology. This is severely undermining their ability to provide quality health care.

Many specialised treatments, for example, complex heart surgery and treatment for certain types of cancer, are not available and patients are therefore referred for treatment to hospitals outside Gaza. But many patients have had their applications for exit permits denied or delayed by the Israeli Authorities and have missed their appointments. Some have died while waiting for referral.

Tony Laurance, the Head of Office for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the West Bank and Gaza, declared: “An effective health care system cannot be sustained in isolation from the international community. Open borders are needed to ensure the health of the 1.4 million people in Gaza”

The humanitarian community believes the health sector would face serious problems in dealing with another emergency on the scale of last year’s Operation Cast Lead, said AIDA yesterday. “The Government of Israel has a legal duty to guarantee the right to health for people in Gaza. The humanitarian community calls for the crossings into Gaza to be reopened.”

More than 61 years since the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and 42 years after Israel’s belligerent occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the issue of forced displacement of Palestinians from their homeland remains an ongoing phenomenon that fails to receive the attention it deserves.

At the end of 2008, at least 7.1 million Palestinians, representing 67 percent of the entire Palestinian population (10.6 million) worldwide were displaced persons. Among them are 6.6 million refugees and 427,000 IDPs. This makes Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) the largest and longest-standing case of displaced persons in the world today.

• Greater rates of cancer and birth defects near sites
• Depleted uranium among poisons revealed in report
By Martin Chulov in Baghdad
January 22 20110

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq’s largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.

The environment minister, Narmin Othman, said high levels of dioxins on agricultural lands in southern Iraq, in particular, were increasingly thought to be a key factor in a general decline in the health of people living in the poorest parts of the country.

“If we look at Basra, there are some heavily polluted areas there and there are many factors contributing to it,” ­she told the Guardian. “First, it has been a battlefield for two wars, the Gulf war and the Iran-Iraq war, where many kinds of bombs were used. Also, oil pipelines were bombed and most of the contamination settled in and around Basra.

“The soil has ended up in people’s lungs and has been on food that people have eaten. Dioxins have been very high in those areas. All of this has caused systemic problems on a very large scale for both ecology and overall health.”

Government study groups have recently focused on the war-ravaged city of ­Falluja, west of ­Baghdad, where the unstable security situation had kept scientists away ever since fierce fighting between militants and US forces in 2004.

“We have only found one area so far in Falluja,” Othman said. “But there are other areas that we will try to explore soon with international help.”

The Guardian reported in November claims by local doctors of a massive rise in birth defects in the city, particularly neural tube defects, which afflict the spinal cords and brains of newborns. “We are aware of the reports, but we must be cautious in reaching conclusions about causes,” Othman said. “The general health of the city is not good. There is no sewerage system there and there is a lot of stagnant household waste, creating sickness that is directly affecting genetics. We do know, however, that a lot of depleted uranium was used there.

“We have been regulating and monitoring this and we have been urgently trying to assemble a database. We have had co-operation from the United Nations environment programme and have given our reports in Geneva. We have studied 500 sites for chemicals and depleted uranium. Until now we have found 42 places that have been declared as [high risk] both from uranium and toxins.”

Ten of those areas have been classified by Iraq’s nuclear decommissioning body as having high levels of radiation. They include the sites of three former nuclear reactors at the Tuwaitha facility – once the pride of Saddam ­Hussein’s regime on the south-eastern outskirts of Baghdad – as well as former research centres around the capital that were either bombed or dismantled between the two Gulf wars.

The head of the decommissioning body, Adnan Jarjies, said that when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived to “visit these sites, I tell them that even if we have all the best science in the world to help us, none of them could be considered to be clean before 2020.”

Bushra Ali Ahmed, director of the Radiation Protection Centre in Baghdad, said only 80% of Iraq had so far been surveyed. “We have focused so far on the sites that have been contaminated by the wars,” he said. “We have further plans to swab sites that have been destroyed by war.

“A big problem for us is when say a tank has been destroyed and then moved, we are finding a clear radiation trail. It takes a while to decontaminate these sites.”

Scrap sites remain a prime concern. Wastelands of rusting cars and war damage dot Baghdad and other cities between the capital and Basra, offering unchecked access to both children and scavengers.

Othman said Iraq’s environmental degradation is being intensified by an acute drought and water shortage across the country that has seen a 70% decrease in the volume of water flowing through the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

“We can no longer in good conscience call ourselves the land between the rivers,” she said. “A lot of the water we are getting has first been used by Turkey and Syria for power generation. When it reaches us it is poor quality. That water which is used for agriculture is often contaminated. We are in the midst of an unmatched environmental disaster.” Source

This type of pollution has long term Health afets on the citizens of Iraq.

This type of pollution is a war crime.

This type of pollution is a crime against humanity.

This type of pollution should never be tolerated.

Those responsible should be held accountable.

Children are affected the most as are unborn an new born babies.

If this happened to you or your children would you be thankful to the US and others who invaded your country.

The invasion of Iraq was and still is illegal.

War crimes have been committed and those responsible must be held accountable. Otherwise there is no true justice in the world today.

Over million died due to the war and many more are dieing due to the pollution left by the invaders.

When war crimes or crimes against humanity are being committed the World must stand up and say No More. Those responsible must be sent to the Hague for trial.

In the case of Iraq there is more then enough evidence to go forward with a trial. The Holocaust in Iraq must be recognized.

We must never turn a blind eye to these crimes.

These crimes are no less then any others that have been committed in our world. If these types of crimes were committed by a leader in Africa they surly would be charged and imprisoned. War criminals should be prosecuted to the greatest extent the law will allow..

Those who pollute are prosecuted are they not?

This was premeditated murder of over a million people..

This was deliberate, toxic, deadly, long term, life threatening, cancer causing, pollution of an entire country.

Why are the ones who planned it and perpetrated the crimes are still walking free? WHY?

Diplomatic immunity does not apply in this case. If that were the Case Saddam would not have been tried and hung. Saddam also did not kill over a million people. Anything said of Saddam is ten fold less then what was done to the innocent victims of Iraq by those who planned the war and the aftermath.

For more information on Iraq and other war pollution the link below has a lot of information. It also has information on Health issues.

Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer.

Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.

Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.

Here are a few examples. In Falluja, which was heavily bombarded by the US in 2004, as many as 25% of new- born infants have serious abnormalities, including congenital anomalies, brain tumors, and neural tube defects in the spinal cord.

In Basra there were 1885 diagnosed cases of cancer in 2005. According to Dr. Jawad al Ali, director of the Oncology Center, the number increased to 2,302 in 2006 and 3,071 in 2007. Dr. Ali told Al Jazeera English that about 1,250-1,500 patients visit the Oncology Center every month now.

Not everyone is ready to draw a direct correlation between allied bombing of these areas and tumors, and the Pentagon has been skeptical of any attempts to link the two. But Iraqi doctors and some Western scholars say the massive quantities of depleted uranium used in U.S. and British bombs, and the sharp increase in cancer rates are not unconnected.

Dr. Ahmad Hardan, who served as a special scientific adviser to the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, says that there is scientific evidence linking depleted uranium to cancer and birth defects. He told Al Jazeera English, “Children with congenital anomalies are subjected to karyotyping and chromosomal studies with complete genetic back-grounding and clinical assessment. Family and obstetrical histories are taken too. These international studies have produced ample evidence to show that depleted uranium has disastrous consequences.”

Iraqi doctors say cancer cases increased after both the 1991 war and the 2003 invasion.

Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of “Uranium in Iraq” told Al Jazeera English that the incubation period for depleted uranium is five to six years, which is consistent with the spike in cancer rates in 1996-1997 and 2008-2009.

There are also similar patterns of birth defects among Iraqi and Afghan infants who were also born in areas that were subjected to depleted uranium bombardment.

Dr. Daud Miraki, director of the Afghan Depleted Uranium and Recovery Fund, told Al Jazeera English he found evidence of the effect of depleted uranium in infants in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan. “Many children are born with no eyes, no limbs, or tumors protruding from their mouths and eyes,” said Dr. Miraki.

It’s not just Iraqis and Afghans. Babies born to American soldiers deployed in Iraq during the 1991 war are also showing similar defects. In 2000, Iraqi biologist Huda saleh Mahadi pointed out that the hands of deformed American infants were directly linked to their shoulders, a deformity seen in Iraqi infants.

But soldiers can end their exposure to depleted uranium when their service in Iraq ends. Iraqi civilians have nowhere else to go. The water, soil and air in large areas of Iraq, including Baghdad, are contaminated with depleted uranium that has a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of the U.S. Army’s Depleted Uranium Project during the first Gulf War, was in charge of a project of decontaminating American tanks. He told Al Jazeera English that “it took the U.S. Department of Defense in a multi-million dollar facility with trained physicists and engineers, three years to decontaminate the 24 tanks that I sent back to the U.S.”

And he added, “What can the average Iraqi do with thousands and thousands of trash and destroyed vehicles spread across the desert and other areas?”

According to Al Jazeera, the Pentagon used more than 300 tons of depleted uranium in 1991. In 2003, the United States used more than 1,000 tons.

What you don’t know about your government could kill you… Department of Defense documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act expose the horrific underworld of the disposable army mentality and the government funded experimentation upon US citizens conducted without their knowledge or consent.

Um Hamza, a 22-year-old pregnant woman, from Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, woke up at night numerous times during the 22-day Israeli war which ended on Jan. 18, sniffing the smell of gas.

Several weeks later she started experiencing terrible pain in the abdomen. Although she had been pregnant for two months then, it was impossible for her to conduct necessary tests as the hospitals were overwhelmed by injured people of Israeli bombardments.

The pain continued for a couple of months before she was finally able to get the medical checkup, and the results left her shocked and speechless. The child she was carrying suffered from malformation and may die either inside her womb or shortly after birth.

The baby came to this world while his brain hung out of his head like a bag of skin covering his eyes, therefore, the baby will never experience sight. Meanwhile, he could not breathe either because of the malformation in his nose as it appears clogged.

The baby’s grandfather, who knew about his grandson’s malformation two months after he was born, said he wished Hamza had died before birth so he could escape the torture, no matter how long.

Um Hamza said she hopes her son would receive treatment abroad, as technology in foreign countries is more advanced, though the chances of recovery is slim.

Since the Israeli Operation Cast Lead last winter, the besieged Gaza Strip saw an increase in the proportion of fetus and newborns malformations.

Thabet Masri, director of neonatal division in the community of medical healing, told Xinhua that from July to September, the rate of children born with different congenital deformities was 17 per month, compared with nine per month over the same period of 2008.

He said the increase of fetal deformity cases is related to the radioactive and toxic materials resulting from Israel’s use of prohibited weapons.

Although fetus malformation was caused by several reasons, we should not ignore the impact of toxic substances and chemicals, especially the white phosphorus, which Israel used in a disproportional way during the war, and white phosphorus is prohibited to use in places of civilians, said the doctor.

White phosphorus bombs are internationally considered dangerous in terms of its impact on respiratory system.

Doctors at the incubation department in the Shifa Hospital said exposure to toxic chemicals and radioactive substances primarily lead to fetal malformations in the first months of pregnancy when the neural tube is formed.

Italian scientists said this month that The Gaza Strip’s soil contains poisonous and cancer-causing materials after collecting soil samples from several areas bombed during the war.

In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen — with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets — it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions?

By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.

The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

The Feb. 17, 2007, Energy Bulletin detailed the oil consumption just for the Pentagon’s aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities that made it the single-largest oil consumer in the world. At the time, the U.S. Navy had 285 combat and support ships and around 4,000 operational aircraft. The U.S. Army had 28,000 armored vehicles, 140,000 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, more than 4,000 combat helicopters, several hundred fixed-wing aircraft and 187,493 fleet vehicles. Except for 80 nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, which spread radioactive pollution, all their other vehicles run on oil.

Even according to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35 countries (out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the Pentagon.

The U.S. military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day. However, this total does not include fuel consumed by contractors or fuel consumed in leased and privatized facilities. Nor does it include the enormous energy and resources used to produce and maintain their death-dealing equipment or the bombs, grenades or missiles they fire.

Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, reports: “The Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007. … The war emits more than 60 percent of all countries. … This information is not readily available … because military emissions abroad are exempt from national reporting requirements under U.S. law and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.” (www.naomiklein.org, Dec. 10) Most scientists blame carbon dioxide emissions for greenhouse gases and climate change.

Bryan Farrell in his new book, “The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism,” says that “the greatest single assault on the environment, on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency … the Armed Forces of the United States.”

Just how did the Pentagon come to be exempt from climate agreements? At the time of the Kyoto Accords negotiations, the U.S. demanded as a provision of signing that all of its military operations worldwide and all operations it participates in with the U.N. and/or NATO be completely exempted from measurement or reductions.

After securing this gigantic concession, the Bush administration then refused to sign the accords.

In a May 18, 1998, article entitled “National security and military policy issues involved in the Kyoto treaty,” Dr. Jeffrey Salmon described the Pentagon’s position. He quotes then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen’s 1997 annual report to Congress: “DoD strongly recommends that the United States insist on a national security provision in the climate change Protocol now being negotiated.” (www.marshall.org)

According to Salmon, this national security provision was put forth in a draft calling for “complete military exemption from greenhouse gas emissions limits. The draft includes multilateral operations such as NATO- and U.N.-sanctioned activities, but it also includes actions related very broadly to national security, which would appear to comprehend all forms of unilateral military actions and training for such actions.”

Salmon also quoted Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, who headed the U.S. delegation in Kyoto . Eizenstat reported that “every requirement the Defense Department and uniformed military who were at Kyoto by my side said they wanted, they got. This is self-defense, peacekeeping, humanitarian relief.”

Although the U.S. had already received these assurances in the negotiations, the U.S. Congress passed an explicit provision guaranteeing U.S. military exemption. Inter Press Service reported on May 21, 1998: “U.S. law makers, in the latest blow to international efforts to halt global warming, today exempted U.S. military operations from the Kyoto agreement which lays out binding commitments to reduce ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions. The House of Representatives passed an amendment to next year’s military authorization bill that ‘prohibits the restriction of armed forces under the Kyoto Protocol.'”

Today in Copenhagen the same agreements and guidelines on greenhouse gases still hold. Yet it is extremely difficult to find even a mention of this glaring omission.

According to environmental journalist Johanna Peace, military activities will continue to be exempt from an executive order signed by President Barack Obama that calls for federal agencies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Peace states, “The military accounts for a full 80 percent of the federal government’s energy demand.” (solveclimate.com, Sept. 1)

The blanket exclusion of the Pentagon’s global operations makes U.S. carbon dioxide emissions appear far less than they in fact are. Yet even without counting the Pentagon, the U.S. still has the world’s largest carbon dioxide emissions.

More than Emissions

Besides emitting carbon dioxide, U.S. military operations release other highly toxic and radioactive materials into the air, water and soil.

U.S. weapons made with depleted uranium have spread tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of radioactive and highly toxic waste throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans.

The U.S. sells land mines and cluster bombs that are a major cause of delayed explosives, maiming and disabling especially peasant farmers and rural peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America . For example, Israel dropped more than 1 million U.S.-provided cluster bombs on Lebanon during its 2006 invasion.

The U.S. war in Vietnam left large areas so contaminated with the Agent Orange herbicide that today, more than 35 years later, dioxin contamination is 300 to 400 times higher than “safe” levels. Severe birth defects and high rates of cancer resulting from environmental contamination are continuing into a third generation.

The 1991 U.S. war in Iraq , followed by 13 years of starvation sanctions, the 2003 U.S. invasion and continuing occupation, has transformed the region — which has a 5,000-year history as a Middle East breadbasket — into an environmental catastrophe. Iraq ‘s arable and fertile land has become a desert wasteland where the slightest wind whips up a dust storm. A former food exporter, Iraq now imports 80 percent of its food. The Iraqi Agriculture Ministry estimates that 90 percent of the land has severe desertification.

Environmental War at Home

Moreover, the Defense Department has routinely resisted orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up contaminated U.S. bases. ( Washington Post, June 30, 2008) Pentagon military bases top the Superfund list of the most polluted places, as contaminants seep into drinking water aquifers and soil.

The Pentagon has also fought EPA efforts to set new pollution standards on two toxic chemicals widely found on military sites: perchlorate, found in propellant for rockets and missiles; and trichloroethylene, a degreaser for metal parts.

Trichloroethylene is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, seeping into aquifers across California , New York , Texas , Florida and elsewhere. More than 1,000 military sites in the U.S. are contaminated with the chemical. The poorest communities, especially communities of color, are the most severely impacted by this poisoning.

U.S. testing of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Southwest and on South Pacific islands has contaminated millions of areas of land and water with radiation. Mountains of radioactive and toxic uranium tailings have been left on Indigenous land in the Southwest. More than 1,000 uranium mines have been abandoned on Navajo reservations in Arizona and New Mexico .

Around the world, on past and still operating bases in Puerto Rico, the Philippines , South Korea , Vietnam , Laos , Cambodia , Japan , Nicaragua , Panama and the former Yugoslavia , rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon.

The best way to dramatically clean up the environment is to shut down the Pentagon. What is needed to combat climate change is a thoroughgoing system change.

The US is the worst polluter on the planet, in war and their corporations.

The war machine must be ended.

Their polluting corporations must be brought under control.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen no once was there any mention of war pollution and it’s affects on the environment or the health hazards to people.

One of the major and morst devastaing things in the world and they neglected to consider it’s impact on the world as we know it.

I am horrifyingly disappointed their lack of concern in this area of disastrous type of pollution.

“Military emissions abroad are exempt from national reporting requirements under U.S. law and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.”

That is just wrong! No special treatment for the war machine and it’s polluters. They leave a trail of DEATH behind them everywhere they go. A trail that continues to kill for years if not millions of years.

Iran has agreed to a plan to export its reserves of enriched uranium to have them processed into nuclear fuel rods, but it wants further negotiations over some details.

The news comes from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was speaking on Thursday on national TV.

“We welcome the fuel exchange, nuclear cooperation, building of power plants and reactors and we are ready to cooperate,” he said.

He added that Tehran’s commitment to the deal is a response to the international community’s abandoning of the “politics of confrontation” over Iran’s nuclear dossier.
However, once again, Ahmadinejad said the Islamic Republic will not give up its rights to have nuclear power. “As long as this government is in power, it will not retreat one iota on the undeniable rights of the Iranian nation,” the Iranian president declared.

Iranian negotiator Ali Asghar Soltanieh has delivered Tehran’s response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna. He also announced that some “important technical and economic amendments” to the draft agreement have been proposed by Iran. However, no further details have been made public yet.

According to Iranian media reports, Tehran will want two changes to the initial plan. Firstly, the Iranians will offer to transfer their low-enriched uranium abroad in small portions rather than all at once. The second modification would insist on transferring enriched fuel back to Tehran’s research reactor soon after every batch of low-enriched uranium is sent abroad.

The question is whether the international community and the IAEA would agree to such amendments.

According to the initial deal – which was sponsored by the IAEA and negotiated between Iran, Russia, France and the United States last week – most of Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium will be shipped to Russia for further enrichment. France will then produce fuel rods from the material, using American technology.

Iran needs fuel rods to run a research reactor built in the country before the Islamic Revolution. Its current fuel load will soon run low.

Meanwhile, the IAEA monitors returned Thursday after visiting Iran’s recently revealed uranium enrichment facility, known as Fordo, near the town of Qom. The inspectors are now preparing a report on their findings which will be announced in November. The fact that the Iranians did let the inspectors into the facility, which was kept secret up until September 21, is seen as Tehran’s readiness to cooperate.

Thursday’s news relaxes tension over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran has insisted that it is purely for peaceful purposes, but several countries including Israel, the United States and Great Britain suspect that Iran wants to make a nuclear weapon.

Western powers have called for imposing harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic and there have even been speculations of a possibility of Israel launching a preemptive strike against Iran. Russia, however, has insisted on a diplomatic approach to the problem and negotiations.

Considering what Israel and NATO have done they should be the ones being sanctioned. They are the ones polluting the planet with Toxic, Poisonous, Radiation not Iran.

Israel, the United States and Great Britain are all guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Anything they say is irrelevant until they clean up their own Nuclear weapons and have those who are responsible for war crimes charged and jailed. Until then their word means absolutely nothing. They are hypocrites.

Iran has not started any wars as the above three, nor have they killed millions of people. NATO is not innocent either.

There’s a ticking time bomb in Serbia, where doctors have reported a sharp increase in cancer deaths among locals and claim this could be linked to NATO’s use of depleted uranium shells during the 1999 bombings.

Serbia is a beautiful country, but it appears to be dangerous to live in. After NATO used depleted uranium munitions there during the 1999 bombing campaign, military experts from Belgrade have registered an increased radiation level and claim the area is highly contaminated.

The Radojkovic family believe they are the victims of the Alliance’s military operation called ‘Merciful Angel’.

The family’s youngest son Nikola was just five years old when an air strike hit his family village.

“I remember nine bombs dropped on that day – they targeted a TV tower just a kilometer away. I was playing in the backyard at that time. The first strike made me fall over. After the second strike I held on to a tractor. A shock wave raised both me and the vehicle,” recalls Nikola Radojkovic, a victim of fallout from depleted uranium missiles.

The family thought that was the end, but the real battle was yet to come – the battle to save the boy’s life.

Eight years after the bombing, Nikola felt he had something like a fish bone stuck in his throat. Surgeons extracted two tiny pieces of shrapnel. Later, a tumor appeared there which continues to grow. Doctors believe the two things are related.

”We had three operations here in Serbia, three more in Germany – it cost 40,000 euros. Almost every family here helped us. Now the doctors say we have to do two more operations to stop the tumor’s growth, and we need 20,000 euros more,” says Dragon Radojkovic, Nikola’s father.

In 2000, NATO disclosed that depleted uranium weapons were used during its mission to bring peace to Kosovo. The Pentagon couldn’t hide cancer deaths among NATO soldiers who were serving in the region.

Doctor Nebojsha Srbljak was among the first to raise the alarm. In 2001 he registered an unprecedented increase in cancer patients.

”There is no other place in the modern world where so many people and so many young people – aged between 30 and 40 – die from cancer. Blood and lung cancer are most widespread,” says Dr. Srbljak, Head of the Merciful Angel NGO.

In an animal hospital in the south of Serbia, one of the most-bombed regions, there is evidence of something going wrong.

“Over the last 10 years, I have seen many two-headed calves, six or eight-legged lambs and other anomalies among animals. Mutation is a normal thing, but when there are so many cases – it’s a symptom. Our nature is sick. And certainly – it has to do with depleted uranium usage,” says Miodrag Milkovic, a veterinarian.

Ten years after NATO bombed the former Yugoslavia, the consequences are felt almost everywhere in Serbia. And as it takes billions of years for uranium to decay, the shadow of the ghost of the merciful angel will hang over the region virtually forever.

Depleted Uranium Fall out in Middle East. This is an older map so it has expanded because of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It does send a message of how far the Radiation can go however.

Add to the DU Contamination the Two thousand Nuclear test conducted around the world. Is it any wonder why we all are getting Cancer and other Radiation related illnesses. In Testing the US is the number 1 offender.

Fall out in the US from testing. So now imagine how far the Fallout spread in the above map.

DU Fallout has the same affects as Nuclear Fall out and spreads through out the regions it is used.

NATO does this everywhere they go. They have done this for years.

The US is one of the worst offenders and the weapons they sell to other countries contain DU.

Cancer: NATO’s time bomb in the Balkans

March 24, 2009,

Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the three-month NATO bombing campaign of the former Yugoslavia – and a decade later, the wounds of the war are still felt.

Throughout the areas which have been affected by NATO bombings, hundreds of people are dying of cancer. Experts say that this may be a result of uranium shells being used.

A little cemetery in Bratunac, Eastern Bosnia became the final resting place for a number of cancer victims. A local resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, gave RT the names of some who are buried there. He says they all died of cancer.

Djoko Zelenovic, who worked in the local military repair factory, died from the disease at the age of 65. The 35 year-old mother of two small children also rests here.

There used to be no more than one or two funerals a year in this small Serbian village in Eastern Bosnia. Since NATO dropped bombs on Sarajevo in the summer of 1995, the number has climbed to as many as one or two deaths a month.

Nikola Zelenovic’s parents are buried here. He says they were healthy until the NATO bombings and is now spearheading an investigation.

Nikola says that “my family lived throughout the war years in the town of Hadjici. My father was working in one of the factories there when NATO bombed it. His health problems started soon afterwards. He died from lung cancer. My mother died a year and a half after him from Leukemia. My parents were never sick before.”

Starting on March 24th, 1999, for three months NATO bombed Serb targets in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. Four years earlier its forces had bombed Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Their aim was to end the fighting between Serbs and Albanians who lived in the areas.

But they left a time bomb behind them. In the years that followed, hundreds of people living in the areas that were hit have died of cancer

In Kosovo, the number of cancer patients has grown three times over the last ten years, while in Bosnia-Herzegovina, already more than a thousand people have died from cancer.

Doctor Slavko Zdrale has treated several cancer patients over the past years and boldly advances theories on the subject:

He told RT that “a few years ago we started noticing that there was as many as five times the number of people dying of different kinds of cancer as compared to the number of people who had been sick before the war.”

“We worked out that 90% of them came from areas NATO had bombed and from areas where ammunition with uranium was used. Nobody in the international community took much notice until Italian soldiers who were stationed in those areas started dying from cancer-related illnesses.”

In Pale, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the war crimes court is recording evidence of an increased number of cancer patients. The court says that the pieces of ammunition found in the bombed areas had a much higher level of radiation than is internationally allowed. Investigators are convinced that this radiation is the underlying cause of cancer.

Simo Tusevljak, the coordinator of the Research and documentation of war crimes, stated that “we believe that this was a deliberate attempt by NATO forces to kill as many people as possible. It was also a chance for the West to test new weapons.” .

“But there is nothing we can do,” he added. “We cannot file any complaint against NATO because all those involved have diplomatic immunity. A NATO soldier can kill and never be prosecuted. But perhaps one day some senior officials from NATO who ordered the bombings will be prosecuted. I believe the order came from high up.”

NATO hasn’t commented on the claims and has dismissed Serbian and Italian investigations.

There has been no other independent research conducted on the subject.

The little cemetery in Bratunac is already full. But locals fear the number of cancer victims will continue to grow for at least the next fifty years, or for as long as it takes for the air to clean.

Ten years after the NATO bombings, the alliance still has a lot to answer for. But no matter when those answers come (or whether they will come at all) they will be too late for the cancer victims.

ROME, Italy (AGI) – According to the Italian Military Health Observatory a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium.

The observatory stressed the fact that 41 pct of active personnel casualties relate to disease. According to Domenico Leggiero at the Military Health Observatory, “The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium”.

Leggiero pointed out the fact that the Senate has to date failed to establish a probe committee on this matter: “it is proof of a worrying lack of oversight on matters which are frankly dramatic”.

Members of the Observatory have petitioned a urgent hearing “in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers”.